Hospitality is especially important for elders because their teaching and ruling responsibilities do not necessarily require them, unlike deacons, to be mixing regularly with strangers, the lonely, widows, and the poor. And yet in too many churches pastors and other elders are not expected to exercise hospitality. Now this may be because churches are sensitive to... Continue Reading

In his article, Greg Peters says that “historically lectio divina was just the way to read the biblical text” (emphasis original), and that it was “not a unique way of reading but the common way of reading the Word of God.” In Credo’s book awards they went so far as to say that it is... Continue Reading

In following the developments over the past four years, one thing has been clear: The name United Methodist is not enough to hold together groups that no longer see one another as united. For a movement which once boasted of a church in every county in America, the splintering of this denomination is a time to... Continue Reading

When Dr. Warfield left teaching at Western seminary it was to return to Princeton Theological Seminary as a professor beginning in the fall semester of 1887. He succeeded Archibald Alexander Hodge as the Charles Hodge Professor of Didactic and Polemic Theology. His inaugural address titled, “The Idea of Systematic Theology Considered as a Science,” was... Continue Reading

There is a common theme in Genesis of younger sons, or occasionally even first sons, wanting to usurp their father’s role. We know something similar is going on by the nature of the curse, it involves authority and submission, implying a sin of rebellion. We might notice that Shem and Japheth (typologically Jews and Gentiles—see Irenaeus... Continue Reading

Christianity is first a hearing religion. The unimpressive “foolishness” of the preaching medium is suited to the Gospel message as are the modest visual media of the sacraments. We know these media are suitable and profitable because God has ordained them. If the words of scripture prompt visual images in our mind, that is natural.... Continue Reading

If religion should animate humanity’s work, the dominion that image-bearers have over creation isn’t merely kingly but priestly—the cultural mandate is at once a heavenly mandate, as that vertical relation with God determines how humans represent God on earth. Joshua Farris sums this up well: “As priests of creation, humanity has the function and privilege to... Continue Reading

Something is happening to young people that is not happening among other age groups. What could that be? It seems obvious that what this age cohort has in common, which sets it apart from older adults, is that it contains students in and recent graduates of the school system. If the shift from liberalism to... Continue Reading

According to wisdom from below, people can transform God’s creation into a paradise by correcting some basic flaws in the world as God made it. The proposed solution is always some simplistic reduction of reality. There are crusades to get rid of private property, crusades to get rid of certain classes of people or certain... Continue Reading

The book makes little pretense of being even-handed, offering instead a series of exposés of the various tricks of the trade that managers use to exploit workers and oppress consumers. There simply are no “good bosses” that populate this narrative. Nor, strikingly, are there any bad workers. It may well be true, as Ahmari charges,... Continue Reading