Getting the Garden Right: The Fall
Throughout Genesis chapters 1 and 2, the reader understands that it is God alone who gets to determine and pronounce what is good (each of His created days – 1:10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31) as well as what…
Tag Biblical Exposition
Getting the Garden Right: Eve and the Diverse Strands of Female Identity
Within the early verses of Genesis, we find not only the source of the universe but also the source of every woman’s identity. The story of our first mother, Eve, has much to tell us about the purpose of women…
Horace Underwood – Korea’s “Bundle of Fire”
As we watch news of North Korea and pray for that gospel-deprived country, it might be encouraging to remember the rapidity and intensity with which Christianity spread within the still undivided Korea in just a few decades. One of…
Primary or Secondary Importance?: Interpretive Anarchy?
It could be argued that the very concept of primary and secondary doctrines is a very Protestant problem, precisely because it comes down to an understanding of interpretive authority. Older writers referred to primary doctrines as dogma, those doctrines which…
The Unforgetting God
I go there from time to time. The lady I visit is the wife of an old friend from another part of the country. He went to be with the Lord several years ago. Even then, she had begun, as…
Primary or Secondary Importance?: Some Cautions
Not every doctrinal issue is a matter of heresy versus orthodoxy. In today’s internet fueled climate this first sentence is worth repeating to ourselves. As young growing Christians many of us, myself included, zealously desired to defend Biblical doctrines. Sometimes…
The Apostles’ Creed: He Suffered Under Pontius Pilate
When you recite the Apostles’ Creed you join with Christians across time and space in affirming the basics of the Christian gospel. First appearing around AD 390 the creed is an apt summation of the history of creation, providence, and…
We will devote ourselves to Prayer
How much is prayer a priority in the life of those who are called to the ministry? It is a probing question, because it relates largely to the hidden life of ministers. In that sense, if we who are ministers…
The One Who Endures: The Confession
A friend of mine, a fellow pastor, spent some time as an ultra-runner. Most runners, who run with any sort of seriousness, seem to knock out a 5k or 10k for fun. Some of those will take some more time…
The Apostles’ Creed: Born of the Virgin Mary
December 25 is indelibly linked in most minds with celebrations of Jesus’ birth. What about March 25 (exactly nine months earlier)? That day has traditionally been associated with “the Annunciation”, the angel Gabriel’s announcement to a young Jewish woman that…