The Differences Between Canonical and Non-Canonical Writings

The way some write about some of the extra-canonical or post-canonical or deutero-canonical writings one would expect the differences between the canonical and non-canonical texts to be negligible. That’s not what I find.

Must Reformed Christians Be Cessationist?

UPDATE 6 June 2009. While working on another project today I stumbled across Garnet H. Milne, The Westminster Confession of Faith and the Cessation of Special Revelation: The Majority Viewpoint on Whether Extra-Biblical Prophecy is Still Possible (Milton Keynes, UK: Paternoster/Eugene OR: . . . Continue reading →

The Anti-Canonical Spirit Of American Religion

A canon is a rule, a measure, an objective standard by which things are measured. A canon is also a limit. Americans have never been particularly fond of limits. We are a busy, restless people always pushing the boundaries. Every school child . . . Continue reading →

What The Spirit Is Doing Or What We Are Saying? Distinguishing Reformed And Pentecostal Piety

What happens is that contemporary evangelical and charismatic folk describe ordinary phenomena in extraordinary, apostolic terms. They identify non-apostolic phenomena as apostolic. That is cheating but it is rhetorically powerful and persuasive. Many evangelicals do not want to live in the post-canonical, in between time. It is a drag. People want a power religion. Judged against the neo-Pentecostal and charismatic claims, Reformed Christianity seems decidedly weak and powerless (see all of 2 Corinthians). Continue reading →

As It Was In The Days Of Noah (25): 2 Peter 1:1–2

The over-arching theme that unites these two epistles is what I have been calling the “Noah Paradigm.” Our Lord appealed to this way of thinking in his Oliver Discourse (Matt 24:37): “As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be when the Son of Man comes.” Our Lord was characterizing the inter-adventure age. He was giving us a way to think about our life between his ascension and his return Continue reading →