Archive for December, 2006
Book Review: The Marrow of Theology, by William Ames
Wednesday, December 27th, 2006Synopsis: The Marrow of Theology, by William Ames, is a comprehensive and minutely-reasoned dogmatic theology of the Puritan worldview. In its own time, it was commended by such Puritans as Thomas Hooker and Increase Mather as the only book outside the bible needed for making one a sound theologian. And today, there may be no […]
What Is Covenant Theology?
Friday, December 22nd, 2006At first glance, it is apparent that the Bible is a very complex book: it was written in three different languages, by dozens of human authors, over the course of many centuries, and in a wide variety of styles and genres. However, beneath this dauntingly complicated surface, there must be a unified purpose and message; […]
Studies in John (Lesson 3: The In-Breaking of the Kingdom)
Monday, December 18th, 2006I. The Laver After the children of Israel celebrated the first Passover, in which they applied the blood of the innocent sacrificial lamb to their homes so that the angel of death, having seen that substitutionary blood, passed over them without exacting the required death; they then went immediately out to the Red Sea, and, having […]
A Few Tidbits from Calvin
Saturday, December 16th, 2006As I was glancing through Book two, Chapter six of Calvin’s Institutes today, I came across a few sentences so thrillingly substantive (and speaking volumes about Calvin’s redemptive-historical hermeneutic) that I had to share them. As follows. “From this it is now clear enough that, since God cannot without the Mediator be propitious toward the human […]
Book Review: God of Promise, by Michael Horton
Saturday, December 16th, 2006Synopsis: God of Promise, by Michael Horton, is a lucid summary and defense of that traditional understanding of Covenant Theology which has its roots in the first Federal Theologians of the Reformation; and which has been defended and developed, more recently, by such scholars as Louis Berkhof and Meredith Kline. Both as a condensation of […]
Images of the Savior (15– His Healing of a Paralytic)
Tuesday, December 12th, 2006Mark 2:9-11 Which is it easier to say to the sick of the palsy, Your sins be forgiven you; or to say, Arise, and take up your bed, and walk? But that you may know that the Son of man has power on earth to forgive sins, (he says to the sick of the […]
Studies in John (Lesson 2: Behold the Lamb of God!)
Monday, December 11th, 2006I. The Brazen Altar When God called out Abraham from his native land, it was to give him a special, covenantal relationship with himself, which he summed up like this: “I [Yahweh] will…be a God to you, and to your seed after you” (Genesis 17:7). Four hundred and thirty years later, when God brought up Israel […]
Images of the Savior (The Provision of a Wife for Isaac)
Wednesday, December 6th, 2006Genesis 24:7 The LORD God of heaven, which took me from my father’s house, and from the land of my kindred, and which spoke unto me, and that swore unto me, saying, Unto your seed will I give this land; he shall send his angel before you, and you shall take a wife unto […]
Studies in John (Lesson 1: Introduction and Prologue)
Monday, December 4th, 2006I. The Purpose of John’s Gospel When one begins to read the gospel of John, after he has read Matthew, Mark, and Luke, he quickly realizes that this gospel is, in several ways, different from the other three. The first three are called the “synoptic” gospels (from a Greek term which indicates a “looking together”), because […]
Eighteen Months: A Reflection
Friday, December 1st, 2006It has been, as of today, eighteen months since I first began posting articles on this web page. This significant lapse of time, combined with the frequently tiresome labor by which it has been characterized, has caused me to spend some considerable time, over the past few days, reflecting on my original motivation and goals […]