Who’s Afraid of John Calvin? Answer: Thomas Jefferson
Jefferson and his relationship to Calvinism seem worth revisiting in light of the ongoing conversation regarding Christianity and the civil order among conservative Christian intellectuals.
[Jefferson] hated Calvin for many reasons, but he held an especially impassioned loathing for the French Reformer’s throaty trinitarianism and the doctrine of election. Calvin, in Jefferson’s reading of history, represented the clearest intellectual successor to the medieval Christian order he despised. He compared what he called the “simple” doctrines of Jesus—his phrase for Unitarianism—with... Continue Reading
A Hermeneutic of Surrender
Obedience is hard work.
Affirming belief in the inerrancy of Scripture is no substitute for living out the authority of Scripture. While we do well to continue refuting the skeptics of Scripture, our ultimate aim must always be obedience. This, after all, is what true scholarship is about—knowledge so well understood that it cannot be help influence life. The... Continue Reading
The Ten Commandments: The Fifth
“Honor your father and mother, that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.”
The Hebrew word is kabod and means heavy. In other words, the person who is to be honored must be accorded weight. Now, it helps if a parent actually has weighty things to say! You can see how the role of the parent and the honor a child is to give work in tandem. The... Continue Reading
Not Just Me and My Bible
What "Sola Scriptura" Doesn’t Mean
Although we cannot benefit from the testimonies and insights of Christians who have not yet lived, we would be foolish to ignore those who have come before us. Bernard of Chartres (d. circa 1124) famously said that we stand on the shoulders of giants—in other words, the body benefits from the exegetical insights, the doctrinal... Continue Reading
Who Am I Anyway?
In the Scripture, I stand face to face with the one who knows me and has defined me, because He has made me.
For all of the talk of spectrum of gender, and growing lists of supposedly available gender descriptors, all of it, the entire discussion is centered on the two basic sexes given to us in creation: male and female. And, while the growing number of sexual and gender identifiers seeks to present as scientific, the fact... Continue Reading
The Christian’s True Identity
The very first thing the Bible says about humanity is that we are made in the image of God.
Justice Anthony Kennedy once famously said that “at the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence.”[1] With these words he codified the thought of today’s average American: there is nothing more important than answering that question, “Who am I?” We are taught (indoctrinated?) to believe that all things are meant... Continue Reading
Someone Needs to See You Suffer Well
Suffering was not a distraction, inconvenience, or detour for Paul, but a breakthrough for what he cared most about.
“God’s presence with me was not Jim’s presence. That was a terrible fact. God’s presence did not change the terrible fact that I was a widow. . . . Jim’s absence thrust me, forced me, hurried me to God, my hope and my only refuge. And I learned in that experience who God is. Who... Continue Reading
Still Complementarian
The doctrine of God is the font from which the other doctrines flow.
This controversy over ESS placed MOS and the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW) on a collision course. CBMW had been perhaps the major purveyor of the errant doctrine of ESS among evangelicals. This doctrine maintains that the roles of leadership and submission Scripture prescribes for the family and the church are founded upon... Continue Reading
The Ten Commandments: The Fourth
The fourth is so often discarded, severing God’s Law right through the middle and cutting out its heart.
Not only is the Fourth Commandment by far the longest of the ten in number of verses and words, it is placed right in the center. Reflecting ancient eastern peace treaties, two copies of the Ten Commandments were made—one for the people and one for their King. In such peace treaties, the king would stamp... Continue Reading
How the Spirit and the Word Prepare You for the Lord’s Supper
Will you withdraw from the bread and the cup when sin plagues your soul?
Paul warned that anyone who takes the Lord’s Supper in an unworthy manner “drinks judgment on himself.” Therefore, he calls us to “examine” ourselves and “then . . . eat of the bread and drink of the cup.” But how do we do that? If our hearts are deceitful and lead us to evil and... Continue Reading