Do we read Scripture with assumptions that fall short of the Bible’s own theological scope? Is our approach to Scripture indebted to the academy more than to Christ speaking by the Spirit in the Church? Have we sold our spiritual birthright for a bowl of materialist pottage? Hans Boersma, the J. I. Packer Professor of Theology at Regent Collage, thinks […]

Subterranean explorers speak of darkness that can be felt.  Any sojourner struggling with depression knows the feeling – that heavy sense of meaninglessness and hopelessness that blackens the light of life. Such lurking darkness is nothing if not resilient. Churchill’s black dog knows how to find us wherever we go, whatever we do. It may seem […]

Trinity Sunday marks the beginning of ordinary time in the Church Calendar. During this season between Pentecost and Advent, we dial our liturgical lenses out for a wide-angle perspective on the journey of faith. This first Sunday of the season calls us back to the principal mystery of faith, to the Holy Trinity in whom we live, […]

  The Spirit hovered over creation from the beginning. Alongside the Father and the Word, he brought chaos to order (Gen 1:1-2), and filled creatures with God’s breath (Gen 2:7). Rushing upon the Judges with power, the Spirit overthrew Israel’s enemies (Judg 15:14-16). He anointed Moses, David, and the rest of the prophets, filling their […]

“On this day not only have we been confirmed in our possession of paradise, but we have entered heaven in the person of Christ; through his inexpressible grace we have regained far more than we ever lost through the devil’s hatred.” Leo the Great Ascension Day often gets overlooked by evangelicals who don’t observe the […]

A plethora of voices in our culture exhort us to have “faith,” to “believe.” Yet, upon reflection, what such “belief” signifies is less than obvious. I imagine the purveyors of pop-spirituality mean something like “The sun will come out tomorrow,” or “The Universe is on our side.” But such language is so expansive and vague any definition will do. Like the primordial abyss, we need […]

Bird’s latest book challenges the ancient and modern Christ-belief known as adoptionism. Historically, adoptionists deny that Jesus is God’s eternally begotten Son, arguing instead that Jesus became God’s Son during his earthly ministry. Routinely, modern scholars insist adoptionism accounts for the New Testament’s earliest testimony about Jesus, while claiming incarnationism represents a later development. Of […]

Substance and solidarity, that’s what many of us desire in the wake of “evangelicalism’s” growing identity crisis. We seek something more than an amorphous and superficial spirituality driven all too often by pragmatism, consumerism, celebrity, and entertainment. Wearied by all this trendiness, a growing number of us stand by the road asking for the ancient […]

Creeds and confessions, for many, appear implausible, for others, dangerous. After all, what relevance can ancient church documents have for the way we worship today? Besides, won’t using such statements usurp the Bible’s authority? Doesn’t our allegiance to sola scriptura defy the use of creeds? Carl Trueman, Professor of Church History at Westminster Theological Seminary, provides […]

We stand in Augustine’s debt for the classic expression of St. Paul’s teaching on grace. Yet, in our thinking about grace, many of us remain children of Pelagius, rather than descendants of Augustine. This comes as no surprise since history records Pelagius’ widespread appeal among many of his own contemporaries. Today, the church continues to […]