The Good Fight
It is fascinating to see how St Paul looks back over his Christian life in face of his fast approaching departure from this world. Writing to Timothy, he describes it as a race to be run, a faith to be…
Tag Grace
Insuppressible Truth: All Creatures of Our God and King
From the opening verse of Genesis 1, God is declared to be the Creator; and as the creation account is described throughout chapters 1 and 2, the Bible simply states that God was there before anything else, and this fundamental…
Bathsua Makin and the Education of Women
As the news challenge us to think biblically about the place of women in today’s world, it might be useful to remember there was a time when women were discouraged from reading, studying, and thinking independently. In fact, the Roman…
Discipline: the Misconstrued Grace
It was John Knox, the Scottish Reformer, who added discipline to the word and sacraments as the third mark of a faithful church. Perhaps it was because the Celts are an unruly lot by nature and he felt the latter…
Jonathan Edwards as Father
Many see Jonathan Edwards as a terrifying preacher. Some consider him one of the greatest American theologians. A few know a couple of endearing details of his life, such as his loving relationship with his wife Sarah. Very few know…
Persecution in Turkey – From Polycarp to Fikret Böcek
If it’s true, as the ancient Tertullian said, that “the blood of martyrs is the seed of the church,” much seed has been sown on Turkish soil, from the 2nd-century martyrdom of Polycarp to the massacre of Christian Armenians in…
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…
Walking in the Light: Insights from Vaclav Havel
My father’s family escaped the Soviet Union in 1934, a few months after the United States established diplomatic relations there, in 1933. They had Russian roots and naively returned to visit an ailing relative in 1922. The Russians said “Welcome…
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…
THE BIBLE IN ITALY – from the Council of Trent to the Italian Republic
I have heard Roman Catholics say that the Council of Trent brought great improvements to the church. If so, the improvements barely touched Italy, where the religious authorities continued to hide criminal acts and the Bible disappeared for centuries from…