Essay / Theology

Barth’s Theological Exegesis

This new book caught my eye: Freedom under the Word: Karl Barth’s Theological Exegesis (Baker, 2019). Let me just admit that the first reason is personal: It’s got essays by three of my theology friends who are alum of the Torrey Honors Institute. Ben Rhodes

Essay / Theology

CFP: LATC2020 on Pneumatology

We need some good papers on pneumatology. In January 2020, the Los Angeles Theology Conference will take up the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, under the title “The Third Person of the Trinity.” We’ve already invited five plenary speakers to address this doctrine, and if

Essay / Theology

“Forgiveness by Sending” (H.S. Holland)

I’ve been puzzling over a perplexing passage from Henry Scott Holland (1847-1918). Holland was an English theologian who did his best theologizing in sermons, especially in the preaching he did at St. Paul’s in London, where he was a canon. The passage that I’ve been

Essay / Theology

Ruth Burrows: Our Nothingness as a Gateway to the Trinity

Humans are not nothing. But fundamentally we are made from nothing, and deep down, we know it. At least some of us do. Ruth Burrows knows that humans are poised between God and the nothing out of which we were made, the nothing that is

Essay / Theology

“His Life Rose With Him”

Here is a helpful way of thinking about the relation between the life of Jesus  and the resurrection of Jesus. “His life rose with him.” When Jesus rose from the dead, he not only came back to life, but also brought back with him the

Essay / Theology

“The Creature in a Separated Sort”

This is a blog post about everything, but mainly about everything in relation to God. I found a striking example of how the Christian confession of the distinction between the creator and the creature can be preached and applied. It’s Richard Baxter’s The Crucifying of

Essay / Theology

The Discipline of Discipline

As a scholar of monasticism and a Benedictine oblate one of my favorite parts of the sixth-century Rule of Benedict is Chapter 49 – “On the Observance of Lent.” Benedict writes, “the life of a monk ought to have about it at all times the

Essay / Theology

Too Clever by Thirds

There are three kinds of people in the world: People who think everything can be broken down meaningfully into threes, and people who don’t. Plus some third kind of person, to make a total of three, which is my point. Please clap. Which brings us

Essay / Theology

Classical Theology: Triune God Course

You’re probably aware that Biola’s Talbot School of Theology is starting an innovative new program, the M.A. Classical Theology. We are admitting students now, so if you are looking for a program that will take you to the heart of what theology is, take a

Essay / Theology

God in Christ

In a sermon on Matt 3:17 (“This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased”), Ralph Erskine (1685–1752) expounds the thesis that “God was in Christ.” The main thrust of the sermon is that there is a great difference between how God can be

Essay / Theology

Not a Lot of Song-Writers But a Solitary Seer

Here is a great-books style argument for the unity of Genesis, from Robert Candlish’s 1868 book on Genesis. It turns on a comparison of Moses and Homer, but is mainly a matter of aesthetic perception of literary unity. Moses, as it seems to me, has

Essay / Theology

Immutable Mercy (Thomas Adams)

Thomas Adams (1583–1653) was a famous preacher, and no wonder. His sermons are so full of ideas and fresh expressions that they fill the mind to bursting. What follows are just some notes I took on a few pages of one sermon. The sermon is