Essay / On This Day
Phoebe Palmer (1807-1874) was born on this day (December 17). Palmer was an American Methodist lay theologian whose writings and speaking gave shape to the American Holiness tradition, with further influence in the Higher Life movement and Pentecostalism. Beginning in 1836, Palmer and her sister
Essay / On This Day
Today (August 27) is the day Ceasarius, Bishop of Arles, died in the year 542. He is most important because of things he didn’t write. Caesarius never wanted to be original, and he wasn’t. He was a conservator and transmitter of the Christian tradition as
Essay / Theology
All Christians believe in the Trinity, but some Christians believe in the Trinity better than others. There are some Bible-believing Christians who have all the basic biblical materials for trinitarian theology stored in their minds, but who have never assembled those materials to make the
Essay / On This Day
The Council of Nicaea opened on this day, May 20, 325. What happened at that first ecumenical council? What was at stake theologically? The narrative of events and players is available elsewhere, but here is an account of the doctrinal dynamics. The council of Nicaea
Essay / Theology
Karl Barth wrote some sentences that run on for about a half-page, circle around their main idea without ever quite stating it, and keep readers on the edge of their seats with a sense of dramatic suspense and tension. But he also wrote quotable bits.
Essay / On This Day
When he was a seven year old boy in Kentucky, Mordecai F. Ham (born today, April 2, 1877, died 1961) tried to “immerse an old tomcat in a rain trough, and when the subject vented all its feline ferocity in objecting to the ‘baptism,’ little
Essay / Theology
Q. Is the present “Tongues Movement” of God? A. It is not. This is clear from the following facts: First–The present “Tongues Movement” makes speaking with tongues the one and only decisive evidence that one has the baptism with the Holy Spirit. The “Tongues” people
Essay / Theology
Gregory of Nazianzus, in his sermon on Baptism (Oration 40:65), stumbles into an interesting comparison and makes the most of it for his preaching. He is thinking of how the Christians he is about to baptize are being introduced into the great mystery that is
Essay / On This Day
Balthasar Hubmaier (born around 1480) was martyred on March 10, 1528. Hubmaier was trained in Roman Catholic theology on the eve of the Reformation, earning a doctorate with the Johann Eck who would later be on the front line of attacking Luther. He became convinced
Essay / Theology
I recently received a letter from one who is evidently an earnest Christian woman but who was in a condition of great depression because some years ago, when in college, she felt that perhaps she was called to go to China but did not want
Essay / Theology
A question for Dr. Torrey: Count Vladimir Gelesnoff says in the December number of his magazine, Unsearchable Riches, ‘the barbarous and heathen dogma of endless torment is refuted by the very passages on which orthodoxy depends for its support.’ Is this statement of Count Gelesnoff’s true?
Essay / On This Day
Eighty-six years ago (February 5, 1837), there was born of poor parents in a humble farmhouse in Northfield, Massachusetts, a little baby who was to become the greatest man, as I believe, of his generation or of his century — Dwight L. Moody. [note: Dr.