Bucer’s teaching on justification is sometimes characterized as a doctrine of “double justification.” Brian Lugioyo thinks this is a misidentification ( Martin Bucer’s Doctrine of Justification: Reformation Theology and Early Modern Irenicism ): Double justification posits . . . . Continue Reading »
In his essay in Martin Bucer: Reforming Church and Community , David Wright observes that the early Bucer sharply separated the baptism of the Spirit from water baptism. During the mid-1520s, he “accommodated infant baptism by minimizing it” (97). By the late 1530s, though, the . . . . Continue Reading »
Dan Glover writes from Canada: “You argue about giving up stretchy jeans as we dont want any of that spandex getting into the bills. I dont know. It seems to me that now-a-days it would be beneficial to make our dollars go further. And what better season than Christmas for trying to stretch . . . . Continue Reading »
In his commentary on Psalm 72 , Calvin gives this convincing explanation for the Psalm’s focus on the king’s duty to protect of the poor: “As God had promised to extend his care to the poor and afflicted among his people, David, as an argument to enforce the prayer which he . . . . Continue Reading »
As the song says, “A very perichoretic Christmas to you, and to all a good night.” . . . . Continue Reading »
As if there aren’t enough reasons to avoid stretchy jeans, here’s another: They contaminate the money supply . US currency is made from cotton, much of it from denim. During the 1990s, though, spandex was added to jeans, and the denim scraps used for money were tainted: “Even a . . . . Continue Reading »
At the conclusion of an intriguing overview of the haphazard form of the church’s mission in Acts, John Howard Yoder concludes ( Theology of Mission: A Believers Church Perspective ) that “the church is not simply a vehicle” of mission. Rather, in Acts, “the events of the . . . . Continue Reading »
A few days ago, I suggested in passing that N.T. Wright misses the connection of the Spirit and the Abrahamic promise in Galatians 3. I was wrong. I just hadn’t gotten far enough in his book, and he addresses that very point in his exegesis of Galatians 3 ( Paul and the Faithfulness of God , . . . . Continue Reading »
According to Thomas in his treatise de Regno ( Aquinas: Political Writings , 23-4), “dangerous evils arise from the desire for glory.” It is dangerous because it causes rulers to over-extend: “For manyhave brought the liberty of their fatherland under the power of an enemywhen . . . . Continue Reading »
“It was a celebrated thesis of the Reformation,” writes Oliver O’Donovan in his Brampton Lectures, The Ways of Judgement , “that the political judgment we enact are Mosaic and not evangelical .” Earlier Christian legal theory “from Gratian to Grotius” . . . . Continue Reading »
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