Latest Articles on Guard the Deposit
Wives, Wells, and Jesus
Isaac, Jacob, and Moses all find their wives through interactions at a well. The parallels are fascinating: So that Isaac does not marry one of "the daughters of the Canaanites, (Gen. 24:3), Abraham sends out his servant to find Isaac a wife, and the servant prays...
More light on the Word and Spirit from Berkhof
This post is a continuation of and , in which I have been trying to get my head around the differences between Lutheran and Reformed...
Word, Spirit, and Dry Bones
In , I quoted Charles Hodge's argument that the Spirit of God alone gives efficacy to the Word and to the sacraments: There is, therefore, a strict analogy, according to the Reformed doctrine, between the Word and the...
The Lamb Alone is Worthy
In Revelation 5, John sees a vision of Almighty God seated on the throne with a book, sealed with seven seals, on his right hand. An angel issues a call to all of creation, challenging, "Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?", but "no one in heaven or...
On the Efficacy of the Sacraments
I have been studying up on the sacraments for ordination exams, and, in Charles Hodge's Systematic Theology, I came across an interesting contrast between how Lutheran and Reformed Christians understand the efficacy of the sacraments that I did not previously...
The Wedding Feast of Christmas
I always take special delight when I am reading in the Old Testament and discover a passage that either pre-tells or outlines the structure of one of Jesus' parables. It is almost like seeing a behind-the-scenes episode on the making of the parables--I imagine Jesus...
Where’s the Fire?
In Amos 1-2, the shepherd-prophet proclaims the LORD's judgment on seven cities/nations: Damascus, Gaza, Tyre, Edom, Ammon, Moab, and Judah. In each of his condemnations, he prophesies that the LORD will "send a fire upon the house/gate of" the particular city/nation...
The Provisions of the Prince
At the end of the book of Ezekiel, the prophet sees a vision of a new temple, a new priesthood, and a rejuvenated sacrificial system. The details are uncomfortably specific for Christians who might expect a prophecy to point a little more directly to Christ's...
The god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers
In 2 Corinthians 4:3-4, Paul writes, "3And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing. 4In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of...
Ayn Rand wasn’t greedy – she was selfish
Apparently it's open hunting season on Ayn Rand, beginning with Gary Moore's "Ayn Rand: Goddess of the Great Recession," and picked up by Ben Witherington's "Randian Libertarianism----An Anti-Christian Credo." I'm not entirely sure where it is all coming from, but...
The Revenge of the Hivites…that Never Happened
In Gen. 34, we read that two of Jacob's sons, Simeon and Levi, are alone capable of slaughtering an entire city of freshly-circumcised Hivite men "when they were sore" (Gen. 34:25) to avenge their sister Dinah, who had been raped by a prince of the city. Their father...
Evangelicals should become more Protestant, not more Catholic
Jonathan Fitzgerald chronicles an increasing trend among evangelicals: frequent conversions to Catholicism. He writes: Croslow’s interest in Catholicism began over six years ago when he was a sophomore in high school. At the time, Croslow’s Midwestern evangelical...