Archive for November 2019
Christian Contentment: An Interview with Melissa Kruger
What is the source of Christian contentment? How can a Christian identify discontentment and wage war against it? In her new teaching series, Contentment, Melissa Kruger offers teaching and encouragement on how Scripture defines and describes contentment. The following is my interview with her around the topic. In one of your teaching sessions, you mention that…
Read MoreLet Us All Be Hospitable
Hospitality doesn’t come naturally to me. In fact, I have spent the better part of my adult life trying to love it. But while I don’t love it, I know it is biblical, and good for me to practice. For a long time, my struggle with hospitality was owing to my own false ideas about…
Read MoreSurprised by the Perfect Being
College can be one of the most pivotal moments in a young person’s life. R. C. Sproul once said that his time in college was life changing because he took a philosophy class where he had to grapple with the greatest ideas from the greatest minds ever to walk the earth. That is true to…
Read MoreHow to Read the Pastoral Epistles Theologically
The letters that Paul wrote to Timothy and Titus have been known as the Pastoral Epistles (PE) since at least the early eighteenth century. As helpful as this label is, it can subtly communicate that the real value of these letters rests in their practical instruction on various aspects of church life. But the PE…
Read MoreTen Baptists Everyone Should Know: Adoniram Judson
Adoniram Judson (1788-1850) was born August 9, 1788 in Malden, Massachusetts. His father, Adoniram Judson, Sr., was a Congregationalist minister in New England. The younger Judson was a precocious child who learned to read by the age of three. He proved to be an excellent student, mastering Greek and Latin at an early age. His…
Read MoreWhy Pastors Should Engage Thomas Boston’s The Crook in the Lot
Out of all Thomas Boston’s practical works, his short Crook in the Lot: The Sovereignty and Wisdom of God in the Afflictions of Men Displayed has had the most success since its publication. Written by someone who had both experienced ongoing trials in his own life (like his wife’s serious illnesses) and preached to those…
Read MorePastoral Theology and the Administration of Baptism
Those of us who teach Christian theology are familiar with the well-worn accusation that theological reflection is impractical, divisive, and deadening when it comes to the spiritual vigor and vitality of individual Christians and the church. And while I would agree that the study of unbiblical theology, though interesting and sometimes necessary, is ultimately a…
Read MoreLet’s Get Old School: Princeton
Who were some of the key figure-heads of Old Princeton and why are their contributions worth retrieving for contemporary evangelicalism? Were Princetonians like Charles Hodge and B. B. Warfield rationalists as so many have assumed today? Did they care at all about faith and piety or were they concerned only with right doctrine? Why did…
Read MoreOld Princeton: New Podcast with Gary Steward, Paul Helseth, and Michael Plato
Who were some of the key figure-heads of Old Princeton and why are their contributions worth retrieving for contemporary evangelicalism? Were Princetonians like Charles Hodge and B. B. Warfield rationalists as so many have assumed today? Did they care at all about faith and piety or were they concerned only with right doctrine? Why did…
Read MoreHow to Read Mark Theologically
It goes without saying that all too few people acknowledge Jesus Christ’s lordship today, and all too many of those who do acknowledge him do so haltingly and inconsistently. This nagging theological and pastoral problem is not new—it is at the heart of Mark’s Gospel. Although Mark contributes significantly to many areas of biblical and…
Read MoreBavinck’s Cultural Moment
Herman Bavinck (1854-1921) was the chief theologian of the Dutch movement known as neo-Calvinism—a movement toward confessional orthodox Christianity in a rapidly changing, modern world. In the post-Enlightenment era of industrial, political, cultural, and even spiritual revolution, T.C.W. Blanning suggests that for Bavinck’s generation “the ground [was] moving beneath their feet.”[1] Scientific materialism had especially…
Read MoreWhy Pastors Should Engage Anselm of Canterbury
I was reminded quite recently how much I don’t know. Granted, it doesn’t take a lot to unveil my ignorance, but as I reflected on this it dawned on me that part of what brought this revelation to light was that I had been listening to conversations around me at a university library where students…
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