Category: Theology
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Benediction for LABTS Graduation 2013
The Los Angeles Bible Training School graduated another class of Bible students last week. These graduates have earned a Bible certificate that equips them to carry on their ministries with greater depth and more training, based on a systematic study of the Scriptures. The commencement speaker was Dr. Clint Arnold, dean of Talbot School of…
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Graduation Prayers
“Write prayers and burn them,” advised P.T. Forsyth in The Soul of Prayer. Why write them? Because it gives you a chance to be more careful in choosing words, in shaping the overall prayer with craft and coherence. Most of the praying that we do throughout a work day is either unscripted and spontaneous, or…
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Doubting 101
This week Fred Sanders posted a link to a meditation on Barth and the experience of doubt in the life of a Christian, and especially of a theologian. The article deals with two forms of Christian doubt, one innocuous, one dangerous, but both negative. While this post rightly identifies two ways doubt can go wrong,…
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Divine Education
One of our semesters at Torrey Honors Institute is called On Learning and Knowledge, and it is an excellent thematic investigation of epistemology, philosophy of education, and even pedagogy, among other things. Our juniors in this course read Plato and Aristotle, Augustine and Aquinas, Frederick Douglass and John Henry Newman, along with Descartes, Pascal, Locke,…
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Whither Trinitarian Theology (Holmes pt. 3)
See the other essays in this three-part series: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. Fred Sanders and Matt Jenson finish their series of posts on Steve Holmes’ new Trinity book, with a discussion about his overall project and what it suggests for trinitarian theology. Jenson: Holmes steers awfully close to despair at the end of his…
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Heart Religion (Wesley on the Christian Life)
My book Wesley on the Christian Life: The Heart Renewed in Love is due out in just a few months (August 2013), and is already available for pre-order at Amazon. Crossway’s fine copy-editor has finalized the text with me, and I’ll be checking page proofs soon. I’m also gathering a few endorsements from generous theologians…
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Traditional Trinitarianism (Holmes pt. 2)
See the other essays in this three-part series: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. Matt Jenson and Fred Sanders are discussing the recent book on the doctrine of the Trinity by Stephen R. Holmes, The Quest for the Trinity. In Part 1, we set up Holmes’ project and his approach. In this installment, we discuss…
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Reminding God of the Brevity of Human Life
I’d like to suggest an alternative to the common understanding of a well-known verse. Verse 12 of Psalm 90 is translated: “So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom” (ESV). The verse is usually taken as a prayer for God to give us the wisdom that comes from…
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Trinitarian Theology for the Church (Review)
The Trinity was forgotten for a period of “centuries of doctrinal tragedy,” until suddenly in the middle of the twentieth century, theologians rediscovered it. Several decades after that ecumenical rediscovery, evangelical theologians are finally catching up. “So goes the standard story,” say Daniel Treier and David Lauber, the editors of Trinitarian Theology for the Church (IVP, 2009), but they…
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"The Quintessential Catechizing Doctrine"
The Spring issue of Credo magazine has a great set of articles on the doctrine of the Trinity. The whole 75-page issue is free online, well designed, and brilliantly edited. Scott Swain on “the mystery of the Trinity,” Mike Reeves on “why a triune God is better than any other,” and Robert Letham on “how…
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A History of the Trinity (Holmes pt. 1)
See the other essays in this three-part series: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. We had a blast talking through Tom McCall’s Forsaken a few months ago and thought we’d do the same with Stephen Holmes’ recent book on the Trinity, published in the US as The Quest for the Trinity: The Doctrine of God in…
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Credo: Trinity Issue
Everybody knows about the magazine called Credo, right? It’s a newish (started 2011) quarterly that is made available for free online (via issuu or pdf). Each issue is elaborately designed and in full color, and the content so far has been excellent. Matthew Barrett of California Baptist University is the executive editor, and he and…