Month: September 2008
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The Communion of the Apostles
Joos van Wassenhove (a.k.a. Justus of Ghent) was a Renaissance Netherlandish painter who spent the greater part of his career in Italy. He became a member of the Antwerp Guild in 1460, but by 1464 had moved to Ghent. Sometime after 1468 he went to Rome and by 1472 had settled in Urbino. Joos’s only…
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"Where have you been? Where are you going?"
One of the most important Plato dialogues not included in the Torrey curriculum, the Phaedrus covers “everything under the sun.” Paul Spears and Fred Sanders join John Mark Reynolds in a Middlebrow discussion about the significance of the dialogue’s setting, virtual reality, and other important themes. Click here to listen!
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Now You See It, Now You Don’t
The church is a visible reality. Sort of. Evangelicals frequently forget, neglect or disdain the notion of the church’s visibility. This is more often than not a function of an ecclesiological minimalism. We get antsy around institutions and formalities, and we rejoice in the simplicity of the gospel. Do you trust in and love Jesus?…
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Even More Means, Even More Grace
When teaching about the means of grace, John Wesley habitually listed three things: prayer, Bible study, and the Lord’s supper. Those are the three in his best exposition of the doctrine of the means, and in many other places: GOD hath in Scripture ordained prayer, reading or hearing, and the receiving the Lord’s supper, as…
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Charles Wesley on Means of Grace
John Wesley preached the classic sermon on the Means of Grace, but his brother Charles decided that this was a doctrine that could be sung. So he wrote a very didactic hymn on the subject. Every line of thought in John’s sermon finds poetic expression somewhere in this 23-stanza hymn. Hymn No. 83, “The Means…
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Wait in the Means of Grace (John Wesley)
John Wesley was a great theologian of the grace of God, and he knew that grace is an invisible movement in which God sovereignly invades the heart of a believer. You can call it experiental or individualist or pietistic or emotional or whatever else you want to call it, but in all his preaching, Wesley…
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New Love to Entertain (Spenser’s Amoretti #4)
NEW yeare forth looking out of Ianus gate, Doth seeme to promise hope of new delight: and bidding th’ old Adieu, his passed date bids all old thoughts to die in dumpish spright. And calling forth out of sad Winters night, fresh loue, that long hath slept in cheerlesse bower: wils him awake, and soone…
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An Active Rest
As the restful days of summer conclude and are eclipsed by the inauguration of a new school year, John Mark Reynolds, Fred Sanders, and Paul Spears reflect upon the importance and nature of play. Different from idleness–which is recognized as the devil’s playground–leisure not only offers rest from everyday toils, but encourages growth and wholeness.…
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Sovereign Beauty (Spenser’s Amoretti #3)
THE souerayne beauty which I doo admyre, witnesse the world how worthy to be prayzed: the light wherof hath kindled heauenly fyre, in my fraile spirit by her from basenesse raysed. That being now with her huge brightnesse dazed, base thing I can no more endure to view: but looking still on her I stand…
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In All Things, Be Fearful
I just returned recently to southern California after a nice, long vacation with my family. As well, I was able to spend two good weeks at the National Institute for Newman Studies in Pittsburgh, PA. The Institute, run by the Pittsburgh Oratorians, is a research facility containing all the works of John Henry Newman as…