Category: Theology
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What the Trinity is For
What is the Trinity for? I hear this question all the time, in churches and classrooms. It comes from different kinds of people: From well-established Christians who have the basics of a life of discipleship figured out, are spiritually healthy, and who are getting along just fine without thinking often of the Trinity. From apologists…
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Bultmann and Tillich: Same Birthday, Same Problem
Two of the most influential academic theologians of the twentieth century share today, August 20, as their birthday: Paul Tillich (1886-1965) and Rudolf Bultmann (1884-1976). What an odd coincidence. I wonder if they ever celebrated it together. Both men were prolific, and their theological projects were very different: Tillich was above all a theologian of…
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Happy Birthday, Cyrus Scofield
Cyrus Ingerson Scofield was born this day (August 19) in 1843, and died in 1921. A confederate veteran, Scofield had a shameful life (alcoholism, prison for forgery, divorce, etc.) before his conversion and call to pastoral ministry. His fame is linked to his 1909 Reference Bible, the resource that put the first draft of dispensational…
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College, Can I Trust You With This?
A parable from pastor Voddie Baucham, Jr.: It was a cold winter night. Jack was sitting in front of the fire carefully lining up the pieces from his gun cleaning kit. He had cleaned his gun before, but tonight was different; tonight the cleaning had a dual purpose. One purpose was to see that his…
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Trinitarian Gallstones of Clare of Montefalco
What you need, as a Christian, is Jesus in your heart and the Trinity in your guts. At least that’s what Clare of Montefalco had. Today (August 18) was the day that Clare of Montefalco (1268-1308) died. Clare entered the Augustinian convent at age nine. By the end of her life she was abbess of…
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William Carey’s Birthday, and India’s
Today (August 17) is the birthday of William Carey (1761-1834), whose name is “synonymous with the heroic age of the Protestant missionary movement” (according to Timothy George). And the birthday falls two days after Indian Independence Day (August 15, 1947). The case for William Carey’s impact on India has been put maximally by Ruth and…
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Happy SchlatterDay
Today (August 16) is the birthday of Adolf Schlatter (1852-1938), a great conservative New Testament scholar from a few generations ago. If you haven’t heard of Adolf Schlatter, it’s time to update your notes. You’re missing out on the Schlatter revival! It’s in full swing, with plenty of good stuff finally available to read in…
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Jeremy Taylor Died Today, Having Written A Book About How To
Jeremy Taylor (born 1613, died today, August 13, in 1667) was a Cambridge-educated Anglican bishop whose most famous books are Holy Living (1650) and Holy Dying (1651). Both are classics, but there are many other books available that are similar to Holy Living: It reads a lot like Law’s Serious Call, Bayly’s Practice of Piety,…
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Happy Birthday Bernard Nieuwentyt
Bernard Nieuwentyt was born this day (August 10) in 1654. You’ve never heard of him, but he was a mathematician, a natural philosopher, a medical doctor, and mayor of his town. He also wrote some theology, including this classic bit from 1718: …let us suppose that in the middle of a sandy down, or in…
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First John: The Final Touches of the Whole System of Evangelical Truth
Christians commonly presuppose a pretty wide gap between biblical interpretation on the one hand and systematic theology on the other. It’s not just a division of labor, but an actual disciplinary boundary that is supposed to keep things tidy on both sides. The exegetes can keep their heads down and do descriptive-scientific work on the…
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The Cane Ridge Revival, 1801
Today (August 6) was the day in 1801 when a Presbyterian communion service in Bourbon County, Kentucky, turned into a major revival. The service grew and grew, carrying on until August 12 and attracting pehaps 25,000 people. The results of the Cane Ridge revival, America’s strange way of starting the nineteenth century, changed the religious…
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Up-Biblum God by John Eliot
The little Hertfordshire church registry says: Anno dm. 1604. John Elliott the sonne of Bennett Elliott was baptized the fifte daye of August in the yeere of our Lord God 1604. What a wonder this John Eliot was. Educated at Jesus College, Cambridge, Eliot was especially gifted in the study of language. He came under…