The Christian church has been waiting for the return of Christ longer than Israel waited for his first appearing. Back on that spring day on Mount Olivet when the disciples saw Jesus ascend into heaven, did they expect this wait to be so long? How should the church conduct itself while its king and head […]
Like me, you are probably disoriented by how quickly culture is changing. Just over a decade ago, there was no such thing as ‘gay marriage.’ Now it is a legal right. When the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court got the ball rolling on the establishment in 2004, most college students were hauling desktop computers to college. […]
When it comes to Christian engagement with culture in its various forms, many Reformed and evangelical Christians have turned to the legacy of Abraham Kuyper (1837’1920). As modernism engulfed the Dutch Reformed Church, he led the founding of the Reformed Churches of the Netherlands and wrote weighty theological tomes. While emphasizing the irreconcilable antithesis between […]
Following the four Gospels within our Bibles is the ‘Acts of the Apostles,’ in which the New Testament shifts from the accounts of God, present among us in the person and work of Jesus the Son, to the Son’s presence among us’with the Holy Spirit’in the persons and works of the church. Sorely neglected (save […]
In 1970, Warner Brothers sold over two million records of the catchy tune, ‘Spirit in the Sky.’ A one-hit wonder, Norman Greenbaum’s song proved to be a classic. Though it was birthed in the hippie generation, you’re still bound to hear it everywhere you go. It was featured in movies such as Apollo 13 and […]
Jesus died for our sins, but he’s not on the cross anymore; he’s seated at the right hand of the Father, ruling the universe. Despite the overwhelming importance of Jesus sitting in heaven (mentioned around thirty-three times in the New Testament), it is an aspect of his work that is often overlooked in the church. […]
One way to summarize the ‘Farewell Discourse’ in John’s Gospel (chapters 14’17) is with the phrase ‘trading places.’ In this discourse, the judicial and transformative aspects of the Spirit’s ministry converge, and Jesus impresses upon the hearts of his confused and fearful disciples that his departure is a net gain. We need Jesus Christ […]
On the night before his crucifixion, Jesus prayed to his father: ‘I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. […]
Progressive, corporate, mild-mannered Minneapolis is an unlikely evangelical mecca, but the popularity of a particular leaky-shoed denizen has made it so for his many young, restless, and Reformed(ish) fans. Joe Rigney was just such a fan-turned-pilgrim when he made the trek from Texas to the Minnesotan tundra to study at his master’s feet; now he […]
While most of our attention has been on atheistic critiques of Christianity, another worldview has gained wider acceptance. It’s called panentheism. Unlike pantheism”all is divine’’panentheism means, literally, ‘all is in God.’ In practice, it also can mean ‘God is in all.’ Many thinkers and movements that have been designated ‘pantheist’ throughout the ages have been […]
Panentheism is characteristic of Hinduism (which is polytheistic) and Buddhism, which goes so far as to consider the world an illusion. Neo-Platonist philosophers such as Plotinus believed that a ‘World Soul’ animates the cosmos. Since then, many panentheists have thought of the relationship between God and the world as analogous to that between soul and […]
In his commentary on 1 Corin-thians 10:4, John Calvin makes an interesting comment worth briefly exploring on the sacraments, the ascension of Jesus, and the work of the Holy Spirit. Apparently, many in Corinth were hiding behind the efficacy of the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper as a sort of prophylactic against judgment, […]
We’ve all heard of people in witness protection programs or defecting from another country who have had to assume new identities”killing off’ their old selves’for reasons of personal safety. Paul appeals to this sort of language when he says, How shall we who have died to sin live any longer in it? Or do you […]
