To keep the work of theology at its proper task, and to keep the theologian from getting distracted, and to keep the main thing the main thing (which is, after all, itself the main thing), there are a couple of helpful rules to observe. They

This Easter season, my reading on the resurrection has included the relevant section from Isaac Ambrose (1604-1664)’s book Looking Unto Jesus. The resurrection portion of the 700-page book is about 80 pages long, and Ambrose takes his sweet time examining how Christ was “carrying on the

Thomas Aquinas knew how to articulate theology, in the double sense of how to be clear about theology and also of how to divide it up into articles. What’s an article? Well, I distinguish two meanings of article in Thomas Aquinas. The most important meaning

Lewis Bayly’s Practice of Piety is a classic work of doctrine and devotion that demolishes the idea that there’s any division between the two. Those of us who simply love to read theology, more or less for its own sake, sometimes need to be reminded

Puritan theology makes a very helpful distinction between union and communion: “Union is the foundation of communion,” says Sibbes. A union is an underlying oneness of some kind, but communion is an ongoing set of  responses, actions, habits, and disciplines by which fellowship is cultivated

When Jesus’ disciples asked him for instruction in prayer, he told them to begin, “Our Father in heaven.” As the Heidelberg Catechism points out (questions 120 and 121), there’s a tension built in to that opening gambit: “Father” indicates that God is like us in