“You shall be like God, knowing good and evil,” the serpent told Eve. Our contemporary culture loves to give us similar advice. Who can be sure what God really said? Better to choose your own identity, express your own personality, construct your own social media profile. Decide what’s right for you, what brings you happiness, […]
Sunday, 01 January, 2023 by Michael S. Horton
Do you remember “sword drills”? Growing up Baptist was not all bad. In those days at least, that was where you went if you really wanted to know the Bible. I learned the “Romans Road,” which led me to the doctrines of grace, in spite of my youth pastor who didn’t think I should keep […]
Monday, 02 May, 2022 by Michael S. Horton
In 1920, a “Plan of Union” for American Protestantism was put forward based on an “evangelical creed.” In his essay “In Behalf of Evangelical Religion,” Princeton theologian B. B. Warfield observed that the new confession being proposed “contains nothing which is not believed by Evangelicals,” and yet “nothing which is not believed… by the adherents […]
Tuesday, 01 March, 2022 by Michael S. Horton
Although they lived near each other along the border, the McCoys were in Kentucky and the Hatfields in West Virginia. Their infamous feud began when Asa Harmon McCoy returned from fighting for the Union in the Civil War and was murdered by some Confederate thugs calling themselves the “Wildcats.” A prominent member of the Hatfield […]
Saturday, 01 January, 2022 by Michael S. Horton
In 1994, Klaus Schmidt discovered a temple in southwestern Anatolia (Turkey) that dates back almost 10,000 years—the earliest Neolithic period, just after the last ice age. As usual, he said, “First comes the temple, then the city.” Human beings are innately religious. We know this from Scripture, of course. In Romans 1, Paul explains that […]
Monday, 01 November, 2021 by Michael S. Horton
I understand evangelicals when they wonder why we can’t communicate the gospel through methods more in tune with our culture. Preaching can seem boring or too formal and hardly able to compete with the entertainment we can so easily access. This, however, is not about novelty versus tradition. There is something much deeper in this […]
Wednesday, 01 September, 2021 by Michael S. Horton
When one moves beyond the few stereotypical doctrines and the solas of Reformation theology into its riches and depth, there can be many surprises and discoveries, even on points we as evangelical Protestants thought we knew and understood. A good example is the word of God as it is proclaimed, which Lutheran and Reformed traditions […]
Wednesday, 01 September, 2021 by Michael S. Horton
If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you” (John 15:18–19). With these words, […]
Thursday, 01 July, 2021 by Michael S. Horton
“Secular writers have begun to discover theology.” This verdict by Boston College politics professor Alan Wolfe appears in his New York Times review of economist Benjamin M. Friedman’s new book on the Arminian roots of capitalism. Wolfe relates that “if someone had told me that a former chairman of the Harvard economics department would write […]
Thursday, 01 July, 2021 by Michael S. Horton
All good gifts—from creation and providence to redemption and the consummation of Christ’s kingdom—come from the Father, in the Son, by the Spirit. The Father is the architect, the Son is the mediator, and the Spirit turns a house into a home. Tracing the Spirit’s work through the Bible, we’re amazed at the breadth of […]
Saturday, 01 May, 2021 by Michael S. Horton
Exiled from the land, the Jews were exhorted by the Lord to use their days wisely. God prosecuted his case against Judah by giving the prophet Jeremiah a letter to read to the exiles (Jer. 29). Babylon was not their home, to be sure, but they were not to spend these years wringing their hands, […]
Monday, 01 March, 2021 by Michael S. Horton
In 2016, The Economist Espresso asked an intriguing question on April 23, Shakespeare’s birthday: “Would you agree that you find Shakespeare relevant today?” The survey found that in Brazil (85 percent) and Mexico (82 percent), the answer was yes, followed close behind by India, China, Turkey, and South Africa. Yet only half of British and […]
Friday, 01 January, 2021 by Michael S. Horton