We are thrilled to bring you the first issue of our 2011 series on the Great Commission. All this year we will move through Jesus' sending of the disciples as we find recorded in Matthew 28. Our decision to take up this topic was an organic one, growing out of a natural progression from "Guilt" […]
There is something about the topic “The Great Commission” that tests our resolve that Word and Sacrament ministry is the lifeblood of a growing and expanding church. This is probably because missions is an immensely practical task, and so frequently the connection between theology and mission is obscured in contemporary evangelicalism. In this issue we […]
I am a pretty impulsive person. There is a check I need to take to the bank. I rush out the door, jump in the car, and am halfway to my destination when I realize that I’ve forgotten the check. The most humiliating part of it is that I will have to return home and […]
Although I am blessed with a good internal compass, my first stop at a shopping mall is usually the mall directory. One of the most important features of that directory is the brightly colored arrow that indicates “You Are Here.” Knowing where you are is the first step toward figuring out where you need to […]
Jesus had waited a long time for his first public sermon. During the first thirty years of his life he was relatively silent, growing in "wisdom and stature" (Luke 2:52) and laboring in obscurity as a carpenter (Mark 6:3). The fact that the Gospel accounts give us precious little information about this phase of his […]
There’s an old joke about a panda that walks into a café. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air. “Why?” asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes toward the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder. […]
Any conversation about the Matthew 28:18-20 "Great Commission" must begin with the essential acknowledgement that the missional activity of the church (that is, the sending, the going, the making of disciples by baptizing, the forming of Christians through teaching, the enduring presence, and so forth) is the work of God. No, not in the sense […]
In Turning Back the Darkness, prolific author Richard Phillips sets forth a biblical theological proposal that emerges from a “formation-deformation-reformation” pattern characteristic of the Bible’s total narrative. Though the content is articulated with an unapologetically Reformed slant (leaning as it does on the paradigms of cov-enant theology, as well as a select group of Calvinist […]
In 1982, the Yale University historian of colonial America, Jon Butler, wrote a provocative article on the First Great Awakening and called the colonial revivals "an interpretive fiction." His subject was less the eighteenth century than the particular efforts of nineteenth-century American pastors to construct a narrative of awakenings led by Jonathan Edwards and George […]
Graeme Goldsworthy, a now-retired lecturer in Old Testament, biblical theology, and hermeneutics at Moore Theological College in Sydney, Australia, is the author of many books, including the popular According to Plan: The Unfolding Revelation of God in the Bible (IVP Academic, 2002)’one of the best and most accessible overviews of the Bible's basic plot. His […]
Jesus declared that "all authority on heaven and earth" had been given to him. He also promised to his disciples’the church’"Be-hold, I am with you always, to the end of the age" (Matt. 28:18-20). Exactly how his authority over all things’heaven and earth’relates to the life of the church has proven to be a difficult […]
N. T. Wright's book Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church is a running complaint about the dominance of fundamentalist and liberal approaches to death, the resurrection, the intermediate state, and the mission of the church. Surprised by Hope is more polemical than insightful, too condescending to be comforting, […]
Most readers of Modern Reformation are probably familiar with John Calvin's commentaries on the Bible. Many no doubt own the entire set and consult them regularly. A select few perhaps even read Calvin's commentaries for daily devotionals. From Calvin we learn to appreciate careful handling of the Scriptures and application for the Christian life. But […]
It is no mean feat to describe the events of 800 years of medieval world history in one book. In order to accomplish this, Susan Wise Bauer limits the narrative to rulers and religion, and more specifically, how medieval kings and emperors em-ployed religion to justify their right to rule. This book follows her earlier […]
Once again I find myself writing the “Point of Contact” book review column, which we subtitle “Books Your Neighbors Are Reading.” The last time I wrote this column (Olive Kitteridge, January/February 2010), I lamented how too few people rush out to purchase and read the latest Pulitzer Prize literature winner. I find myself in a […]
