In everything worth having, even in every pleasure, there is a point of pain or tedium that must be survived, so that the pleasure may revive and endure. The joy of battle comes after the first fear of death; the joy of reading Virgil comes after the bore of learning him; the glow of the... Continue Reading

An intelligent designer might seem more necessary than ever now that we understand so much cellular biology, and the impossibly long odds facing any attempt to design proteins by chance, or assemble the regulatory mechanisms that control the life cycle of a cell. Meyer doesn’t reject Darwinian evolution. He only rejects it as a sufficient theory... Continue Reading

The “formal equivalence” approach to biblical translation strives to bring the original-language source-text to the reader by effecting as close to a word-for-word translation as possible, given the constraints of moving from one language to another. By contrast, the “dynamic equivalence” approach (sometimes called “functional equivalence”) aims to bring the reader to the source-text through... Continue Reading

John W. Nevin, The Mystical Presence—Published in 1846, this volume provides both a defense of Calvin’s eucharistic doctrine and a wonderful introduction to the soteriology of the Mercersburg Theology movement we associate with John Williamson Nevin and Philip Schaff. In it, Nevin called out much of the American Reformed community for its rationalistic Zwinglianism and lack... Continue Reading

As Flynn explains, by “denying the principle that things really do, unexceptionally, have explanations, we throw ourselves into a catastrophic, self-defeating skepticism, where nothing can be counted as knowledge, or any belief rationally justified, including—and this is important—the belief that things lack explanation.” In short, brute facts end up being a universal acid that eats... Continue Reading

The Father is indeed our source of peace (Col.1:2). And his work of reconciliation through the death of his Son is the foundation of our future and final hope. Thus the hope of the gospel is Christ. The Father has accomplished our redemption and reconciliation through his Son in order to present us blameless at... Continue Reading

An arrest, a jail sentence, or a death penalty are all acts of violence in which the system uses force against a person who has been made in the image of God. God permits this in order to maintain law and order in his world. However, it is critical that such violence be committed justly,... Continue Reading

We live in a polluted, irreligious, narcissistic, culture ruled by the idolatry of self. God has little place. Others are only a means to exploit. The needy are bypassed and of small concern to us. The intensely practical nature of real godliness calls us to a cross, to death of sin and self, that the... Continue Reading

We tend to think that everything should be immediately available because that’s how things are online. And so we kind of develop this impatience with regular life, which tends to be delayed and not as instantly gratifying as we might wish. We tend to view things through the lens of convenience and efficiency rather than... Continue Reading

We can be grateful that Paul was forced to counter this false teaching in Colossae, for it gave him an opportunity to clarify the preeminence of and sufficiency of the ascended Christ for the believer. This Christ dwells in us below, and we are hidden with him above. This should give the believer hope for... Continue Reading