Year: 2012
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Happy Birthday, Charles E. Fuller
Today (April 25) is the day when Charles E. Fuller was born in 1887. Fuller is famous for the classic radio show The Old Fashioned Revival Hour, and for founding Fuller Theological Seminary. Charles Fuller started broadcasting in 1925, and the Revival Hour started in 1937, but it already sounded intentionally old-fashioned then. And Fuller…
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Ames' Very Concise Theology
Puritan theologian William Ames (1576-1633) wrote the Medulla Theologiae, which is available in English as The Marrow of Theology (trans. John Dykstra Eusden). It’s a fine little systematic theology for many reasons. But in this age of Twitter, I’m struck by how Ames chose to express his thought. He wrote out the whole system of doctrine…
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Learning from William Ames
They called him by the Latin name Guilliamus Amesius, but if we talk about this British-born theologian at all now, we call him William Ames (1576-1633). Dust him off and read him. Here are some lessons I learned from Ames years ago that have stuck with me ever since. Ames was educated at Cambridge…
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Happy Birthday, Alfred Edersheim (1825-1889)
Today (March 7) is the birthday of Alfred Edersheim, the nineteenth-century Bible scholar who really made the grand tour: He was born in Austria, converted from Judaism to evangelical Christianity in Hungary, studied theology in Edinburgh and Berlin, was a missionary to Jews in Romania and a preacher in Scotland. He was ordained in the…
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Paul's Dramatic and Tragic List of Sins
In First Timothy 1:8-11, Paul gives a striking list of the kind of people that the law was given in order to restrain: The law is not for the just, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for…
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Lenten Asceticism
As most of you know, we are nearly two weeks into Lent, that forty day period that we set aside before Easter to prepare ourselves for the remembrance of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It’s an important season in the church calendar and should be an important time of preparation for all…
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The Vision of the Bible Institute (Biola 1912)
In the summer of 1912, the Bible Institute of Los Angeles had been in business for four years, and was about to make major changes. They were putting up an important building in downtown Los Angeles, and hiring the most famous evangelist in the world, R. A. Torrey, as their first academic dean. That July,…
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Sin Safari
A cartoon tour of the bestiary of sin, exploring the terrible fauna of hamartiology. In issue 4 of Dr. Doctrine’s Christian Comix (InterVarsity Press, 1999), I did my best Dr. Seuss imitation to explore the doctrine of sin. You may need to click through to a larger image to read the text well.
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Biola's Founders (104th Birthday)
Last week Biola celebrated its 104th birthday, and I got to speak in the Founder’s Day chapel service about the three most important founders: Lyman Stewart, T.C. Horton, and R. A. Torrey. Thirty minutes is not enough time to do them justice! But the audience was good, and spirits were high, and I shared as…
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5 Things I Learned at Torrey From John Mark Reynolds
In the previous post, John Mark announced that he was leaving the honors program he founded to become the new head of academics at Houston Baptist University. He’s continuing, of course, to be an essential member of the team at Wheatstone Ministries through insight at board meetings, speeches at conferences and events, his kind and…
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The Old Order Changes
Outside my family, Torrey Honors is the best thing to happen to me so far. The chance to start Torrey and work with the chums has been the greatest honor of my life. Jesus built Torrey and it was a miracle that I could be involved. I am so thankful to Biola University for taking…