Category: Theology

An earlier generation asked What Would Jesus Do? But these days, people are increasingly comfortable with skipping the hypothetical, shifting out of the subjunctive, and just telling us What Jesus Would Say, in their opinions. If he were really here, that is: if he were talking, if he were blogging, or meme-ing, or cartooning, or…

Three Elements of Trinitarianism in the New Testament

Mar 14, 2014

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Whether the doctrine of the Trinity is in the Bible is a nice question. Yes or no? When asked, I routinely answer “yes,” and then backpedal from there: I concede that the key terminology (person, substance, Trinity) is not to be found in the words of Scripture, that the whole conceptual package is not assembled in…

Fringe Benefits of Being Finite

Mar 13, 2014

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Discovery Honing skills Getting stronger Being surprised Falling in love Learning Figuring something out Taking risks Maturing, outgrowing Relief at getting over something Becoming a parent Having frontiers Surfing Having fringes

Fundamentals Sermon for Founders Day

Mar 12, 2014

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I got to preach in Biola chapel on Founders Day 2014, the week we marked Biola’s 106th birthday. We also happen to be within the centennial period for the publication of The Fundamentals (1910-1915). What, you may ask, are The Fundamentals (1910-1915)? What, you may ask, do they have to do with the Bible Institute…

Down with Random Acts of Kindness (What’s Best Next)

Mar 11, 2014

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in Culture, Theology

Matt Perman’s book What’s Best Next: How the Gospel Transforms the Way You Get Things Done is finally available. I’ve been looking forward to this book for a long time, and am glad to report that it lives up to the high hopes I’ve had for it. The genre of productivity literature is its own…

Symposium on Soulen’s The Divine Name(s)

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The Winter 2014 issue of Pro Ecclesia: A Journal of Catholic and Evangelical Theology features a 58-page symposium on Kendall Soulen‘s important 2011 book The Divine Name(s) and the Holy Trinity: Distinguishing the Voices. That seems like a lot of pages of commentary, but they are well deserved: Soulen’s book is both a solid accomplishment in its own right…

Thoughts Gymnastikos on Alternatives to Trinitarian Regiratio

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Athanasius of Alexandria (4th century), always trying to put the best face on the writings of Origen (2nd century), once cautioned readers that Origen sometimes wrote dogmatikos (expressing his actual considered opinion and judgments), but at other times this “labor-loving man” wrote gymnastikos, as if trying out ideas, “as if inquiring and by way of exercise.” It is in…

Nine Mighty Acts of God (Christoph Barth’s OT Theology)

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Christoph Barth’s 1991 “theological introduction to the Old Testament,” God With Us, organizes the theology of the Old Testament not around doctrines, but around divine acts. Christoph selects nine divine acts, to be specific. Here are my summaries of how he develops them. Not much commentary from me, just summary of what Barth selects under each…

God With Us (Christoph Barth)

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Karl Barth once remarked that if he could be accused of founding a school of Barthians, then at least its membership was limited to his two sons, Markus and Christoph, who were professors of New and Old Testament respectively. Not a bad academic family legacy for a systematic theologian! Markus Barth (1915-1994) was a pretty…

Sitting Just Quietly in God’s Light

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Joe Henderson

One the happiest parts of my life at present is the view out my office window. My second-story window in Sutherland Hall at Biola University looks down on a little sunlit courtyard with a fountain. The branches of a tree touch the window, and through-out the day, the sunlight filters through the leaves illuming and…

Locating Atonement: Coming in January 2015

Jan 15, 2014

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