Jordan Cooper, Baptized into Christ: A Guide to the Christian Life, Just and Sinner Publishing (2016). 175 pages. Jordan Cooper is a conservative Lutheran pastor, whose blog and podcast can be found at Just and Sinner. Although I have never personally met Jordan, we have engaged in conversations via social media over the past couple years, […]
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Jehovah’s Witnesses and Jesus As Theos in John’s Gospel
March 21, 2016 
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The doctrine of the deity of Christ has been affirmed by the vast majority of the Christian church throughout its history. Ever since the Council of Nicaea in AD 325, it has been considered a litmus test for orthodoxy. It is one of the few doctrines that unites the main branches of the faith—Protestantism, Roman […]
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Review: By Faith, Not By Sight, by Richard B. Gaffin, Jr.
March 15, 2016 1 Comment
As I began preparing to teach a class on the New Perspective(s) on Paul (NPP), I made use of a number of sources to guide my research. Most of my sources were coming from a broadly confessional Reformed perspective, and one stood out as especially worthy of mention. At only 125 pages, Richard Gaffin’s By Faith, […]
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Robert Rollock on the Merit of Christ
March 2, 2016 3 Comments
Robert Rollock was a 16th-century Scottish Reformed theologian, credited with developing the idea of a distinction between a covenant of works and a covenant of grace between God and man (aka “bicovenantalism”), and with helping bring Reformed theology to the British Isles. Although his work was influential for later mainstream Reformed theology, he was also […]
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Review: Trinity and Organism, by James Eglinton
February 29, 2016 1 Comment
James Eglinton, Trinity and Organism: Towards a New Reading of Herman Bavinck’s Organic Motif (T&T Clark, 2012) Evangelicals in America have an identity problem. The current political landscape demonstrates a divide within American evangelicalism on how to put our values into practice. At the heart of this fissure is a lack of coherent theological ethics – […]
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Kuyper on the Church and the Kingdom of God
February 9, 2016 0 Comments
Exactly what is the relation of the church to God’s kingdom? Are they the same thing? Are they distinct? Abraham Kuyper responds to these questions in the following quote, taken from his address to the Free Church in Amsterdam, now translated in the volume Rooted and Grounded: The Church as Organism and Institution (Christian’s Library Press, 2013): […]
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In Defense of Worldview
January 4, 2016 2 Comments
The term “worldview” is thrown around a lot in evangelical circles—especially in the world of Christian education—but very rarely is it defined with any care or precision. Much less do many Christians realize just how controversial it is. After all, the term doesn’t come from Scripture or even from Christian theologians, but rather from modern […]
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Review: One Kingdom: The Practical Theology of John M. Frame, by John Barber
December 24, 2015 3 Comments
John Barber. One Kingdom: The Practical Theology of John M. Frame. Lakeland, FL: Whitefield Media, 2015. 346pp. Disclaimer: Although I have never personally met the author, we have been friends via social media for several months. When I heard that his book was being published, I offered to write this review for him. Dr. John […]
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Grace, Truth, Worldviews and The Ongoing Abortion Debate
October 16, 2015 1 Comment
I’ve mostly watched the recent abortion debate on my social media feeds with interest, hope, excitement, compassion, and anxiety. My excitement comes from my hope that our society may move closer toward the theological and philosophical position that human life at every stage is valuable. My compassion shows up when I think about people I have who have […]
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Setting the Record Straight on Lutheranism: Four Myths
September 22, 2015 5 Comments
Calvinists and Lutherans have a complicated history. Both traditions are rooted in the Protestant Reformation understandings of justification (sola fide) and authority (sola scriptura). Calvin himself acknowledged his debt to Luther and was even accused of being a Lutheran. In their early years, the two movements were able to find much common ground, and at […]
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