The well-read life was the aspiration of bygone saints. For them, heaven on earth was a scriptorium, where illuminated manuscripts and scrolls containing the collected knowledge, wisdom, and misinformation of the ages were available to the literate for their use, enjoyment, and befuddlement. There are three stages in the history of God’s people that can […]
Sunday, 01 July, 2018 by Rick Ritchie
In Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up? 12 False Christs, Matthew Richard explains how easy it is to fall into the trap of redefining Jesus to suit ourselves. The theme is one I have seen dealt with in the past by Francis Schaeffer (who also stressed the importance of worldview), and the layout of the book […]
Sunday, 01 July, 2018 by Rick Ritchie
While linking the ministry of the Holy Spirit to the gospel is not really controversial, binding the Holy Spirit to the word is. When considering how the Holy Spirit operates in the lives of Christians, there seems to be a tendency to gravitate to either end of the spectrum—some will insist that the Spirit operates […]
Tuesday, 01 May, 2018 by Rick Ritchie
Joseph was told by an angel to name his son Jesus, because he would save his people from their sins (Matt. 1:21). In times past in Egypt, the Passover lamb had borne people’s sins, but now Jesus came into the world to become the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world […]
Thursday, 01 March, 2018 by Rick Ritchie
When people hear reformational Christians claim to be confessional, they wonder what that means exactly: “Do you go to confession?” This is not as mistaken a question as we might think—the words for “confessing” faith and “confessing” sins have been the same for centuries. At the time of the Reformation, debates about the nature of […]
Monday, 01 May, 2017 by Rick Ritchie
Some years back, I viewed Amadeus in the student lounge of the Assemblies of God college my friend was attending. In this film about Mozart, a Roman Catholic priest visits a lunatic asylum where Salieri, a court musician of mediocre talent, is pining away his last days. The priest seems sincere and has a good pastoral manner. […]
Wednesday, 01 March, 2017 by Rick Ritchie
When people first hear about the doctrine of the bondage of the will, it almost always strikes them as a dark teaching. When I myself was first handed some books on predestination in my youth, I remember seeing the supporting verses and thinking, ‘This looks like it is probably true, and if it is, I […]
Monday, 31 August, 2015 by Rick Ritchie
With this publication, David Wells adds a fifth book to a collection of writings that began some years ago with a sabbatical research project exploring why evangelicals, broadly understood, don't do theology. While the former books focused on the interplay between Christ and culture, this book is the first to focus more on Christ’whom he […]
Tuesday, 01 July, 2014 by Rick Ritchie
Not long ago, I taught an online apologetics course for a Christian college where class was held in a chat room. The students were required to attend for a specified period of time and then were free to leave, though they were also free to stay around if they wished. Often, two or three would […]
Friday, 28 February, 2014 by Rick Ritchie
Like a diet promoter who gains fame by promising better results with fewer restrictions, Christian Smith has produced a stir in the evangelical publishing world by offering an understanding of scriptural authority that is supposedly both easier to maintain and more orthodox. In his book, The Bible Made Impossible: Why Biblicism Is Not a Truly […]
Monday, 02 July, 2012 by Rick Ritchie
So what do Lutherans think of the "doctrines of grace"? Are they "grace alone" people? Are they predestinarian? Do they believe in teaching the whole counsel of God? Many might be surprised to discover that "grace alone" is not solely a distinctive of Reformed churches. It has been a subject of great importance in the […]
Tuesday, 03 January, 2012 by Rick Ritchie
What do questions of media have to do with Word and Sacrament? We can find the latter discussed in the Bible, while the former is a late twentieth-century construct, isn't it? When I first started to think about this, that was how it appeared. But these two kinds of questions are more closely related than […]
Thursday, 30 June, 2011 by Rick Ritchie