Today Justin Taylor posted one of my favorite sections from C. S. Lewis’s sermon, “The Weight of Glory.” In that sermon, Lewis speaks eloquently about the “desire for our own far-off country”–the desire for heaven. I worry that much contemporary teaching and preaching fails to speak with Lewis’s eloquence about this far-off country because it fails to […]
Turretin’s Treasure
Book Review: Institutes of Elenctic Theology by Francis Turretin About fifteen years ago at one of the annual meetings of the Evangelical Theological Society, Allan Fisher gave me, a poor doctoral student at the time, one of the best gifts that an aspiring student of theology could ever receive: a copy of Francis Turretin’s three-volume […]
Some thoughts on the Mosaic Covenant
I have read with profit Mark Jones’s recent posts on the covenant of works (see here and here), having benefited from his other writings on this topic as well. Such theological clarity and historical awareness are much to be appreciated when it comes to the relationship between the covenant of works, made with Adam in the Garden, and the […]
The Lion King: Genesis 49:8-12
So are we poor? It’s no matter if we dwell in the kingdom of Christ, for he is unfathomably rich. Do we lack wisdom? All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are in him. Do we lack power? He abounds in the power of God to meet our needs. Are we miserable? Our Christ is […]
What are church historians good for?
I’m in the process of reading an excellent manuscript on Martin Luther, of which I hope to say more at a later time. Recently, I also finished reading an exceptionally fine study of the Westminster Standards by John Fesko. Both books have prompted me to reflect a bit on the benefits we receive from the work of […]
Pushback on the pushback
Over at First Things Peter Leithart recently posted some comments on Gijsbert van den Brink’s article in the July issue of the International Journal of Systematic Theology. Therein, van den Brink addresses recent lack of enthusiasm in academic theology for “social trinitarianism,” i.e., the belief that “Father, Son and Holy Spirit might best be conceived of as three distinct and […]