Category: Blog
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Going to California with an Aching in my Heart
This month, I’m leading a class of Biola students who will try to understand California. We are undertaking a theological interpretation of California with the goal of knowing how to live wisely as Christians in this territory. There’s no guaranteed right way to do this, and we only have three weeks together. But this is…
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Robert Murray M’Cheyne
Robert Murray M’Cheyne was born today, May 21, 1813, and died in 1843, having barely made it to age thirty, and having been in the ministry (at St. Peter’s Church in Dundee) for a little over six years. There are two reasons his short ministry is still with us. First, M’Cheyne was happily placed between…
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What Happened at Nicaea
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 was a response to the challenge of Arianism. In the…
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Alcuin’s Epitaph
Alcuin of York was born around 735 and died on this day, May 19, in the year 804. He got to write his own obituary, or rather epitaph, which goes like this: Hic, rogo, pauxillum veniens subsiste viator… Oops, I mean like this: Here, I beg thee, pause for a while, traveler, And ponder my…
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Where You Go When You Die.
Where are the saints of this dispensation while awaiting the return of their Lord and their resurrection body? This question is answered very plainly and explicitly in 2 Corinthians 5:1-8, For we know that if the earthly house of our tabernacle be dissolved, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands,…
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Butler’s Analogy
Joseph Butler (born this day, May 18, 1692; died in 1752) was the Bishop of Durham and a celebrated public intellectual. In fact, his greatest work, the Analogy of Religion (1736) was so famous in its own time and so influential for the next 150 years, that it is hard to explain how it could…
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The Departure of G. Campbell Morgan
George Campbell Morgan (born 1863, died this day, May 16,1945) was an internationally renowned Bible teacher with an extensive ministry based at London’s Metropolitan Chapel. For about two years (from early 1927 to December 1928) he taught at BIOLA. Always a popular teacher, Morgan was well-liked at this young Bible Institute (just entering its third…
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Why Protestants Should Read Thomas Aquinas (4: Big Thoughts)
The fourth and final benefit of reading Thomas Aquinas (see the first, second, and third in previous posts) is that Thomas is a master of thinking big thoughts. There are only a handful of theologians in the history of the church who can think so big and teach you to do likewise. So while Thomas…
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Famous Last Words (for Biola’s Class of 2009)
(delivered at the Senior Dinner for Biola’s graduating class, May 15, 2009) Thank you so much for how you have honored me by inviting me to this special dinner and electing me Professor of the Year. It means a lot to me that out of all the great professors you have had in your years…
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Gustaf Aulén, Lundensian Theologian
Gustaf Aulén (born this day, May 15, 1879; died 1977) was the Lutheran bishop of Strängnäs, Sweden, and the leading figure in a loosely-defined movement within twentieth-century theology called the Lundensian Theology. The other major figures in the movement were Anders Nygren, Ragnar Bring, and, at a distance, Regin Prenter. The label Lundensian, which is…
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Why Protestants Should Read Thomas Aquinas (3: Skill in Reasoning)
Here is the third benefit of studying Thomas Aquinas (see also benefits one and two): He can help you become skillful in reasoning. No matter what you read by him, and no matter where you start reading, as long as you reel off a few pages and pay attention to them, you will see a…
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Timothy Dwight of Yale
Timothy Dwight (born this day, May 14, 1752; died in 1817) became the President of Yale at a time in American higher education when skepticism was becoming cool, and all the young men of the nation who had spent a few months on a college campus expected each other to be outgrowing the colonial faith…