by | Apr 6, 2011 | Bible, Books, Preaching, Theology
I cannot remember a time when I have relied as exclusively on a single commentary for a sermon I prepared as I did this week with Phillip Cary’s masterful work Jonah in the Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible series (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2008). In...
by | Feb 3, 2011 | Bible, Books, Preaching, Theology
Christian exegetes have wrestled with the connection of Ezekiel’s Valley of Dry Bones and the doctrine of the bodily resurrection since they first preached on Ezekiel 37 from the light of Christ’s own bodily resurrection. While early exegetes drew a very...
by | Jan 28, 2011 | Bible, Books, Church, Preaching, Theology, Worship
In a previous post, 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 sacraments as a means of...
by | Jan 22, 2011 | Books, Church, Theology, Worship
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...
by | Oct 12, 2010 | Bible, Books, Theology
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...
by | Sep 21, 2010 | Books, Culture, History, Theology
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...