Category: Theology
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Sigmund Mowinckel’s Birthday
Today (August 4) is the day when Norwegian Old Testament scholar Sigmund Mowinckel was born (1884-1965). I have never made it more than a couple dozen pages into any book by Mowinckel, but he is always influencing the way I read the Psalms. My favorite Psalms commentaries were written by people who were influenced by…
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Augustus Hopkins Strong, Theologian
Today (August 3) is the birthday of baptist theologian Augustus Hopkins Strong (1836-1921), one of the most important American theologians of the nineteenth century. Strong was a man of contrasts: gregarious and popular, he nevertheless carried himself with an overstated dignity and reserve; always making witty remarks, he was never known to laugh out loud…
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Basil the Holy Fool
Today (August 2) is the day the Russian Orthodox church commemorates Basil of Moscow, the Fool for Christ. Basil was a poor serf, a shoemaker’s helper, who acted crazy for Jesus. He went around naked; he had no home; he talked funny; he took things from merchants and gave them away to the even poorer.…
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“Sin Boldly!”
Today (August 1) in 1521 is the day Martin Luther wrote the advice, “Sin boldly. But believe even more boldly in Christ, and rejoice.” Protestants have been apologizing, and simultaneously not apologizing, for it ever since. To understand what it means, you have to be familiar with three things: Luther, Melanchthon, and justification by grace…
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Horatius Bonar Heard the Voice of Jesus Say
Today (July 31) is the day in 1889 when Horatius Bonar died at the age of 81. Bonar (1808-1889), Scottish pastor and author, was from a long line of clergymen and was brother to the equally famous Andrew Bonar (1810-1892) with whom he is sometimes confused. Born in Edinburgh and educated there under Thomas Chalmers,…
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William Jones of Nayland on Defending the Trinity
Today (July 30) is the day William Jones was born in the year 1726. He lived until 1800, and is remembered as “Jones of Nayland,” for the last post he held, as perpetual curate of Nayland from 1777 (and because the name Jones doesn’t exactly make you easy to find in English history books). Jones…
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Vincent van Gogh: More Blue than Yellow
Today (July 29) is the day in 1890 when Vincent van Gogh died from a gunshot wound he had inflicted on himself two days earlier, leaving behind many questions. That van Gogh was mentally tormented throughout his life is widely known. It is an unavoidable subject for biographers, but also an irresistible subject for anybody…
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Happy Birthday to J. Gresham Machen
J. Gresham Machen was born this day (July 28) in 1881, and died in 1937. An adherent of the Old Princeton theology and protege of B. B. Warfield, Machen launched a classic attack on modernist theology in 1923 with his book, Christianity and Liberalism (New York: Macmillan, 1923). As modernism made deeper inroads into the…
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Barth vs. Augustine
This is an excerpt from a longer article on Barth in A Guide to the Historical Reception of Augustine, ed. Karla Pollmann and Willemien Otten (Oxford University Press, 2013). Benjamin Warfield once wrote that ‘the the Reformation, inwardly considered, was just the ultimate triumph of Augustine’s doctrine of grace over Augustine’s doctrine of the Church.’…
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The Seven Sleepers of Ephesus
Once upon a time, the cruel emperor Decius came to the city of Ephesus to build new temples at which all citizens, but especially the Christians, would be required to worship him by sacrifices, or else die. Now in this city lived seven Christian men named Maximian, Malchus, Marcian, Dionysius, John, Serapion, and Constantine. When…
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Charles Tindley Understood it Better By and By
Today (July 26) in 1933, Charles Albert Tindley died at the age of 77. Born just one half-step out of slavery in 1856, Tindley rose to the rank of pastoring a 3,000 member Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia. Tindley has been called “the prince of preachers” (apologies to Charles Spurgeon), but I haven’t been able…
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William Burkitt: Observe and Learn Hence
William Burkitt was born this day (July 25) in 1650. Burkitt was a graduate of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, and an Anglican minister. He was the author of the celebrated Expository Notes on the New Testament, published in two volumes about 1700. Later luminaries such as Matthew Henry and Charles Spurgeon recommended this work highly. Burkitt…