“Yahweh saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually…But Noah found favor in the eyes of Yahweh. Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, . . . Continue reading →
We begin this episode with a classic public service announcement by Vincent Price from 1950, warning about the dangers of bigotry and prejudice in American life. You shall have to hear it for yourself. It is apropos of our renewed social concern . . . Continue reading →
What is God doing in the history of redemption and how to does that inform us about what he will do in the future? What were the Old Testament believers expecting? Has God promised to establish a literal 1,000 year kingdom on . . . Continue reading →
Over the last week, on social media, there has been some discussion of an essay entitled “The Second Eve: How Christian Women Undo The Curse.” This expression, “undo the curse,” is a provocative way to speak and is used in modern authors . . . Continue reading →
Dispensationalism describes a way of reading the Bible and a system of theology the nearest roots of which are in the 19th century. There have been premillennial (traditionally known as “chiliastic) movements, including some Reformed theologians, since the early church but most . . . Continue reading →
Introduction Arguably Reformed theology has never been more popular among evangelicals than it is right now. There are multiple large parachurch movements that extol the virtues of Reformed theology in a way that was unknown thirty years ago. It has never been . . . Continue reading →
3His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, 4by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, . . . Continue reading →
Universal salvation (or universalism) seems to have first emerged as a distinct religious doctrine among Christian gnostic teachers in or around Alexandria, Egypt, during the early to mid-second century CE, several decades before the influential and well-known Christian author Origen (ca. 185-251)… . . . Continue reading →
For many American evangelicals, faithfulness to the Bible means believing in a view of end times (eschatology) that teaches that says something like this: The book of the Revelation is to be read literally (including chapter 20) The formation of the nation . . . Continue reading →
For many American evangelicals, faithfulness to the Bible means believing in a view of end times (eschatology) that teaches that says something like this: The book of the Revelation is to be read literally (including chapter 20) The formation of the nation . . . Continue reading →
It is not difficult to find calls for the church to be “prophetic” especially toward the end of “social justice.” Of course we should favor social justice since nature and Scripture (e.g., Rom 13:1–7) both teach us that it is the function . . . Continue reading →
One of the several challenges faced by those who are moving from outside the Reformed churches to inside the Reformed churches is the transition from, e.g., worship in the broader evangelical world to worship as the Reformed churches understand it. Underneath the . . . Continue reading →
Yesterday (August 13) was the 477th anniversary of a small but symbolic event in Reformation history. On that date in 1541 John Calvin returned to Geneva from Strasbourg, where he had been a happy exile for about three years. On his first . . . Continue reading →
There is much consternation and joy about the announcement that the United States intends to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Some evangelicals and fundamentalists, perhaps inspired by a Dispensational understanding of redemptive history and their pre-millennial hermeneutic, are overjoyed with . . . Continue reading →
Theonomy (or, more broadly Christian Reconstructionism) is one of the tollbooths through which pilgrims from traveling from Münster to Geneva, as it were, often seem to pass. I encountered it almost as soon as I came into contact with the Reformed churches. . . . Continue reading →
Covenant theology is unknown to most American evangelical Christians. Others, however, are regularly warned (usually by Dispensational pastors and teachers) about the dangers of “replacement theology.” They allege that the Reformed churches teach that the church has “replaced” Israel in God’s plan. . . . Continue reading →
The late-modern period is a a time of disillusionment in the West and perhaps nowhere else is that disillusionment more acute than in America where, since at the least the early 20th century, the false promises of Modernity (human perfectibility, the universal . . . Continue reading →
I have been thinking some lately about Karl Marx (1818–83). Now, it has been a few decades since I have read Marx but I did read him a fair bit in University as an undergraduate. I think my various Political Science professors . . . Continue reading →
There is much consternation and joy about the announcement that the United States intends to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Some evangelicals and fundamentalists, perhaps inspired by a Dispensational understanding of redemptive history and their pre-millennial hermeneutic, are overjoyed with . . . Continue reading →
From time to time, Protestants have been tempted to think that the Roman communion has been dealt a fatal blow. History, however, tells us that though she has been wounded from time to time, she always returns. However vigorous the Reformed churches may be in some parts of the world (e.g., Brazil, South Korea, and Nigeria) the confessional Presbyterian and Reformed churches in North America (NAPARC) are tiny compared to the Roman communion. Continue reading →