Covenant Theology

It is not surprising that a book addressing the presence, nature, and function of the Old and New Testament should have a profound impact on us. Yet, much of what has been written about the Bible has been an attack on it. Wonderful are those books that helps us understand the power, authority and...

The Elizabethan polymath, Francis Bacon, counseled, “Some books should be tasted, some devoured, but only a few should be chewed and digested thoroughly.” Undoubtedly sound advice. But of the more than 300,000 books published annually in US, how is one to sort through such a smorgasbord of literary...

There seems to be a never-ending market in Christian circles for books on guidance. The reason for this, of course, is that we as Christians (like all other human beings) want to make right decisions and choices in life. We want to avoid mistakes – especially when they often run the risk of major...

In our last three articles that dealt with the sin-related petitions in the Lord’s Prayer we noted in passing how striking it is that such a large proportion of this prayer is focused on our fallenness and failure. This surely says a great deal about why, in light of Calvin’s famous dictum about...

Kata Bethlen – A Faith Preserved Kata Bethlen (1700-1752) started her autobiography with her most painful memory: her forced marriage, at age 17, to her Roman Catholic half-brother. Her family – one of the wealthiest and most influential in Transylvania – had firmly adhered, for generations, to the...

Contemplating the question, “If you could preach only one sermon, what would it be?” the thought that keeps returning is, “Love God.” Perhaps this focus of proclamation comes to mind because our church’s men’s study is going through Jonathan Edwards’ Charity and Its Fruits based on 1 Corinthians 13...

I cannot tell you how many variations I have heard of sermon and sermon points about the special kind of agape love in the New Testament. Variations often emphasize the uniqueness and the sacrificial aspects of agape love and distinguish it from the other Greek words. Yet, as D.A. Carson warned in...

The triplet of sin-related requests embedded in the Lord’s Prayer ends with the shortest, but in many ways the most potent of them all: ‘Deliver us from evil’. As many commentators point out, there is a measure of ambiguity over whether it should be rendered ‘…from evil’ or ‘…from the evil one’...

Wouldn’t it be wonderful to own a time machine? Who wouldn’t want to return as a spectator to the most significant moments in history? To witness bishop Leo face off with Attila the Hun outside the gates of Rome or Farel beseech Calvin to stay in Geneva or the Westminster Assembly debate...

Alcuin of York – More Than a Scholar In 781, a Saxon monk named Alcuin had an encounter that changed his life and became the catalyst of the dynamic but short-lived Carolingian Renaissance. The man he met was the Frankish King Charles (later known as Charlemagne). As many others him, Charles was...