Earlier this month, a group of art experts in Amsterdam dropped an art world bombshell: “Rijksmuseum Researchers Discover New Painting by Rembrandt van Rijn.” The painting in question, Vision of Zacharias in the Temple, had been rejected by scholars as…
Siblings have ways of tormenting each other. A boy will position his finger about an inch from his sister’s shoulder and say, “I’m not touching you!” And few things are as creepy as someone staring at you, even if it’s…
YHWH, the Tetragrammaton traditionally transliterated as YAHWEH[1] and translated in Scripture as “LORD,” “GOD,” “JEHOVAH,” and “JAH”[2] is the most used name for God and especially sacred. It assumes a developing covenantal significance during redemptive history in Exodus 3:13-15; 6:1-8—there…
Wilhelmus à Brakel: A Systematic Theologian for the Common Person Introduction Wilhelmus à Brakel (1635–1711), a name revered in Reformed theology, holds a unique place among the great theologians of the Dutch Second Reformation, also known as the Nadere Reformatie.…
Robert Lewis Dabney and the Greatness of Old Southern Presbyterianism I’m a bit of a book collector. I love getting my hands on an old volume from some obscure theologian and basking in the riches of God’s goodness and grace,…
The Lutheran doctrine of the Lord’s Supper is frequently described as consubstantiation. Though Lutherans do not prefer this description, it captures a key distinction being made in their eucharistic theology. Lutherans assert that along with (con) the bread and cup in…
The metaphor of God’s kingdom as a vineyard is one that has Old Testament vintage, which is appropriate when talking about a vineyard. Long before Christ’s first advent, the prophet Isaiah described the Kingdom of Judah as a vineyard well-supplied…
Our lives are filled with “but God” moments. Perhaps it was an addiction in which we were ensnared, but God delivered us. Maybe it was a place where we almost compromised our purity, but God restrained us. We may have…
Justification is not the gospel in its entirety. It was not enough for God to only justify us in Christ. He has also insisted on adopting us in Christ: “In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons…
People who believe in Jesus and want in all things to please God can still struggle with assurance of salvation. Circumstances like the transition from childhood to adulthood, major trauma, and the imminence of death can trouble believers with spiritual…
