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Abortion and the Early Church
In this post, I’m going to address two misconceptions that people often hold concerning abortion. First, many people assume that elective abortions are a fairly recent phenomenon—something made...
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Recommended Reading on the Conservative Resurgence in the SBC
If you are interested in Baptist history and are looking for a few good books to read in the new year, you may want to check out Nathan Finn’s annotated list of resources on the Conservative Resurgence...
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C. S. Lewis on Reading Old Books
One of my goals each semester is to try to convince students that writers of the past are not only worth reading but are also much more enjoyable and more valuable to read than they may have imagined....
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On Reading Old Books: A Few Suggestions from the Fourth Century
A couple of weeks ago I suggested that believers would benefit from occasionally reading older books. However, just because a work was written in a previous era does not mean that it’s necessarily...
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The Christian Lover: The Sweetness of Love and Marriage in the Letters of...
Several years ago Michael Haykin put together a short anthology of letters written by notable believers of the past about the subject of marriage. The letters provide interesting insight into a side of...
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Celebrating St. Patrick’s Day
Although St. Patrick’s Day appears on our calendars each year, most modern celebrations of St. Patrick’s Day have little to do with the person behind the holiday. This coming weekend many people will...
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Calvin the Preacher
John Calvin (1509–1564) is remembered for many things—some good, some bad, some real, some imagined. If Calvin’s legacy is misunderstood today, the reason for that misunderstanding generally cannot be...
View ArticleFour Guidelines for Prayer
A couple of weeks ago, I blogged about six reasons for prayer drawn from John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion (3.20.3). In addition to these reasons for prayer, and in fact immediately...
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Days that Changed the Course of History…and an Ordinary Year: Two Different...
Over at the Gospel Coalition blog, Joe Carter recently wrote about how four leading church historians responded to the question: “After AD 70, what day most changed the course of Christian history?”...
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Introducing Children to Christians of the Past
A little over a year ago, I blogged about some church history resources for children, and I recommended the Christian Biographies for Young Readers series. Now a new book in that series, this one on...
View ArticleCalvin and the Overarching Reason for Prayer
In an extended discussion of prayer, John Calvin suggested six reasons why believers should pray to God. Those reasons tell us a lot about what Calvin saw prayer accomplishing. However, over and above...
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Book Note: Woodbridge and James, Church History (vol. 2)
Some eight years ago now, Zondervan released the first installment of a two-volume church history set. The initial volume was written by Everett Ferguson, the author or editor of numerous works related...
View ArticleWorldliness and the Problem of Disordered Love
Recent discussions about the nature of worldliness reminded me of a statement that dates from the late fourth century. In his book On Christian Teaching, Augustine (354–430) discusses what it means to...
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Book Note: David Beale’s Historical Theology In-Depth
I was pleased to receive in the mail this past week a new historical theology text. BJU Press has recently released David Beale’s two-volume work, Historical Theology In-Depth. I’ve only just begun...
View ArticleScripture or Zeitgeist as the Determining Factor in the History of American...
A few years ago, Stanley Gundry wrote an article, “Hermeneutics or Zeitgeist as the Determining Factor in the History of Eschatologies?” (JETS 20 [1977]: 45–55). In it, he proposed that the church’s...
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What Really Happened in the Incarnation? Some Thoughts from the Fourth Century
Did Christ exist before he was conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary? And if he did, in what sense did he exist before his incarnation? In the early fourth century, a church leader named Arius came...
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Book Note: Tri-Faith America: How Catholics and Jews Held Postwar America to...
According to author Kevin Schultz, in 1942 President Franklin D. Roosevelt asserted that the United States is “a Protestant country,” and that “Catholics and Jews are here under sufferance” (Tri-Faith...
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Abortion and Human Depravity
This past week many people on both sides of the abortion issue commemorated the 41st anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision (issued 22 Jan 1973). Since that time, more than 56 million...
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Augustine’s Version of “Teach a Man to Fish”
Students in my Medieval Church History class recently read Augustine’s book, On Christian Teaching. As I was working my way back through this little volume, I was struck by a statement Augustine...
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Do You Know Any Heretics?
Within American history the names of Benedict Arnold, Aaron Burr, and the Rosenbergs live on in infamy. These are people who rather notoriously tried to undermine the well-being of our nation for some...
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