Job has suffered these terrible calamites. Therefore, Job is at fault for this evil. The syllogism by many “Reformed friends” is the same. This kind of hatred only comes upon people who have been indoctrinated into white nationalism. The shooter attended a Reformed church and yet practiced this hatred against the Jews. Therefore, the blame... Continue Reading

Finney instituted the altar call, pleading during that prolonged service for sinners to come forward, kneel at the bench before the platform, confess their sins, and be saved. The New Measures were necessarily bound to Finney’s theology, which was also not only new but an intentional and decided departure from the Calvinism and from the... Continue Reading

There is no defense for such an act. There is no justification. No explicitly Christian theology can ever justify such terror mingled with anti-Semitism or other racial bias and sin. Orthodox Presbyterians know this is not the norm. Racial bias and violence are not taught explicitly or implicitly from its pulpits (at least not in... Continue Reading

The Psalmist is not only weeping, but he reached to hang up his lyre on the branch of a willow tree somewhere along the Tigris or Euphrates River in this cradle that gave birth to the ancient civilization (137:2). The Babylonians, his captors, wanted to hear him sing a song of Zion. But the Psalmist... Continue Reading

If we unpack all of what Scripture teaches about the local church, we’ll find that church membership is in fact in every nook and cranny of the New Testament. In that light, I want to focus on just one aspect of how Scripture talks about the church—the images of the church—and consider how these metaphors... Continue Reading

The revisions of the Reformation theology, that salvation is by grace alone (sola gratia), through faith alone (sola fide) proposed by the Remonstrants were fatal to the good news. They also rested on a hermeneutical foundation. Hermeneutics is the study of the interpretation of texts. The study of biblical interpretation is, of course, biblical hermeneutics.   When we... Continue Reading

The theological word that describes God’s care for all things is “providence.” Providence means that the hidden hand of God is always at work in the ordinary affairs of day-to-day life. Ruth is not a theological treatise reflecting on the doctrine of providence in the form of propositions. Instead, as we read about the lives... Continue Reading

When studying for my presentation, I wrote this this section of notes last because I did not want to view my study of Scripture through the eyes of my own experience. After completing my study of Paul and Timothy and coming to my conclusions, I thought I’d look at my own life to see if... Continue Reading

To say I was speechless would be a lie. I had plenty of words to say and fists I wanted to throw. But I figured any word that came out unfiltered would be something I’d regret for the rest of my life. Mostly, because my kids were there and they were eyewitnesses to what is... Continue Reading

You take a lamp with oil (which is very expensive to burn), you turn it on, place it in the center of the room in order to light up the whole room, and, instead of allowing it to do its job, you put a basket over it. A foolish waste of money. That’s what Christians look... Continue Reading