William Boekestein
By around the fourth century, the Christian church began commemorating (around January 6) the visit to Jesus by the wise men recorded in Matthew 2:1–12. The festival was called Epiphany (Greek, “revelation”), since it is in this text that we see Christ’s glory revealed to the world. Despite Luther’s attempt to retain the festival—to emphasize […]
Imagine a man returning home from a hard day’s work. Upon entering the house he erupts in anger; the place is trashed. In a rage he screams at the first kid he sees. As soon as she opens her mouth to talk he slaps her on the face. His daughter drops to the ground. She […]
Like every book in the Bible, the fourth gospel was uniquely inspired by God. He used a special human author to write an important message to a particular original audience, a message that he has carefully preserved to our day. Puritan William Perkins called John (along with Romans) one of the keys to unlocking the […]
Fortress Press, 2015 264 pages (hardcover), $16.99 Protestant non-Lutherans tend to know Martin Luther the way they know their own great-grandfather: they can give the highlights about him, but that’s about it. But when it comes to knowing the most important Christian Reformer of the past five hundred years, for lots of reasons, highlight knowledge […]
No amount of freedom is worth the compromise of biblical teachings” (52). This maxim can serve as a reminder of Christian priorities at a time when religious freedom remains under threat throughout the world. In Marie Durand, Simonetta Carr reflects on persecuted Protestants in eighteenth-century France. After the revocation of the right to peaceful worship, […]
Why Christ Came: 31 Meditations on the Incarnation by Joel R. Beeke and William Boekestein
By publishing their small booklet Why Christ Came: 31 Meditations on the Incarnation, Joel R. Beeke and William Boekestein have done a great service to the church. The original intention, as stated in the preface, was to "help us more deeply celebrate [Christ's] birth, allow us to see more clearly how it is connected with […]
We live in a place and time of unparalleled individual freedom of choice. We choose how we dress from an almost endless number of options. We decide whether we want our books in paper or digital format. Young people graduating from high school or college enjoy a host of vocational opportunities. Our culture trains us […]
Fewer people are pursuing marriage today than ever before, and those who do are waiting longer to get married. In 1960, 59 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds were married compared to just 20 percent in 2010. In 1960, the median age for entering marriage was in the early 20s; today it's nearly 30. As marriage […]
Athanasius North Africa was one of the leading centers of Christian thought for most of the first millennium after Christ. Near the heart of early North African Christian influence was a fourth-century Egyptian bishop named Athanasius’a churchman revered by Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant Christians alike. Simonetta Carr's newest book in her Christian Biographies for Young […]
Years ago, as I was teaching Question 1 of the Heidelberg Catechism to my Sunday school class of first- through third-grade students, I wished for a book written specifically for their age about the rich history behind this important document, imparting the passion and urgency with which it was originally composed. That's why I was […]
