Can We Overemphasize the Cross?
Is it possible to undervalue Christ’s sufferings by overemphasizing the cross? In his Economy of the Covenants Between God and Man, Herman Witsius (1636-1708) includes a profound section on the…
Ryan McGraw
Damned by Faith
Can faith damn us? The Dutch theologian Wilhelmus à Brakel (1635-1711) argued that the first sin of Adam and Eve was unbelief. To state this differently, they exchanged faith in the Word…
Sign and Seal
The sacraments have always been a point of contention in the church. Someone once said that the sacraments serve as a litmus test of the strength or weakness of a…
Book Review: Calvinus Pastor Ecclesiae
Herman J Selderhuis, Calvinus Pastor Ecclesiae Papers of the Eleventh International Congress on Calvin Research, vol. 39, Reformed Historical Theology (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2016). 467pp. Hardcover. $150.00. Many scholars…
Where’s the Love? Polanus on Divine Goodness
What is essential in an adequate list of Divine attributes? Summarizing the attributes of God is a difficult task, and hardly two lists of divine attributes agree. In this light,…
Book Review: John Owen and English Puritanism
A while back, I published a relatively critical review of Crawford Gribben’s biography on John Owen. Gribben’s Owen was initially jarring to me. In my previous assessment of his work,…
Adoption and Edward Leigh
Adoption has been occasionally undervalued and neglected in church history. Yet Paul treated adoption as the end to which the Father predestined his elect (Eph. 1:5). Adoption is the sum of our…
Book Review: God’s Ambassadors
Chad B. Van Dixhoorn, God’s Ambassadors: The Westminster Assembly and the Reformation of the English Pulpit, 1643-1653, Studies on the Westminster Assembly (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 2017). 215pp.…
Improving Your Baptism
Eating disorders can fall towards two extremes. Some abuse God’s good gifts by eating too much food or bad food; others starve themselves, perhaps attempting to lose weight or control…
Book Review: Debated Issues in Sovereign Predestination
Joel R. Beeke, Debated Issues in Sovereign Predestination: Early Lutheran Predestination, Calvinian Reprobation, and Variations in Genevan Lapsarianism, vol. 42, Reformed Historical Theology (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2017). 252pp. Predestination…
The End(s) of Theology
The first question of the Westminster Shorter Catechism (and Larger) Catechism famously states, “Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.” Some have asked whether this…
Book Review: The Cambridge Companion to the Summa Theologiae
Philip McCosker and Denys Turner, eds., The Cambridge Companion to the Summa Theologiae, Cambridge Companions to Religion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016). 368pp. Paperback. $34.99. Regardless of one’s theological convictions,…