The Cure for Shame
“Shame. Boatloads of shame. Day after day. More of the same. Blame. Please lift it off. Please take it off. Please make it stop.” Those words are not just the lyrics to a famous Avett Brothers’ song, they are also…
Category Reformation21
“A Plea For Realism”: Are Presbyterians Christians?
Presbyterian ecclesiology has some advantages. For example, we try to refrain from being sectarian. There is a healthy catholicity to our ecclesiology, which is seen in our communion practice (section 7; see also PCA, BOCO 57-5). In relation to our healthy…
The Joys (and Sorrows) of Parenting: Calvin on Gen. 4.1-26
By virtue of his sin Adam “was banished from that royal palace of which he had been the lord.” Yet God did not leave Adam homeless; “he obtained elsewhere” — somewhere east of Eden — “a place in which he…
Turretin’s treasure
About fifteen years ago at one of the annual meetings of the Evangelical Theological Society, Allan Fisher gave me, a poor doctoral student at the time, one of the best gifts that an aspiring student of theology could ever receive:…
See It Publicly
When I made arrangements to start blogging here, I told the fellows in charge that it was unlikely that I would blog more than twice a month at Ref21, but I’m about to only have posted once in my premiere…
Wearing Christianity on Your Sleeve: What Helps Evangelism
In 2011, hip hop artist, Shai Linne, released his album, titled, “The Attributes of God.” In one of his songs, “Taste and See,” he said, “The world is not subtle, why should we be subliminal?” Good question – why? I…
Less Gushing, More Blushing
Biographical description many pastors write for the web site of their church: “Married to the most beautiful woman in the world.” “We have the best youth pastor in the country.” “He’s the smartest guy in every room…” I often joke…
Why God Is Not a Philosopher (and why Bavinck thinks theologians must be)
Discursive reason–our capacity to think things through, infer conclusions, offer logical explanations, and so on–enables us to argue a point, make judgments, criticize beliefs and actions, and, in a word, philosophize. Philosophers work with concepts and trade in arguments. Some…
Knowing Jesus: The Lake or the Drop?
Few people, this side of eternity, can claim to have known Jesus like the Apostle Paul did. Yet, not as a man outside of Christ, but as a man “in Christ,” Paul considered everything apart from Christ as “dung” because…
6 Ways to Benefit from Reading Genealogies, by Matthew Holst
Most Christians inwardly, if not outwardly, groan when they arrive at a genealogy in their Bible reading. This is a shame. The genealogies are wonderful and I love studying (not just reading) and preaching them. They are compressed histories of…