The proper structure of the church was one of the most contested issues of the sixteenth century, and while Protestants agree on the errors of an episcopacy headed by a supreme pontiff, there is still little agreement among them about the right form of church polity. Many of these disagreements emerged early in the Reformation,…

When we talk about “translation,” we understand that we have in mind two languages. Translation is to render something originally in one language in the other language. Saying that the Bible teaches a wrong cosmology also implies a difference: a correct version and a wrong version. Where “accommodation” is invoked the biblical version might not…

Theories abound on the inspiration of Scripture, from God dictating precise words to the Holy Spirit inspiring biblical authors in much the same way musicians speak of being inspired when they create a masterpiece. One theory of inspiration that holds great sway among American evangelicals particularly, states that the Bible is true in all that…

Reflecting on Ephesians 3:14-19, German Reformed theologian and pastor Wolfgang Musculus (1497-1563) draws out the significance of Christ’s indwelling for the nurture of believers. Musculus understands indwelling as our union with Christ as a body of believers, and argues that this relationship is the same as a branch grafted into a vine, from which it…

During the first day of my college course on the relationship between science and religion, I have my students draw a diagram of the scene that they envision in Genesis 1:2. “Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the…

The highest heavens belong to the LORD, but the earth he has given to mankind. (Ps. 115:16) When Copernicus published his theory, challenging Ptolemy’s model (second century A.D.) and favoring that of Aristarchus of Samos (third century B.C.), that the sun not the earth is the center of the solar system, he could not stand outside his…

Despite the upheaval of the Reformation, the need for the people of God to gather regularly was never questioned, even by those seeking the most drastic changes to late medieval piety. Here, the importance of church meetings is attested by Austrian Radical elder Leupold Scharnschlager (d. 1563), who argues that the community should come together…

Thinking deeply about science and religion, and thinking especially about how the two disciplines should properly interact, is now a multimillion-dollar industry. Or so it seems. The Templeton Foundation and BioLogos, for example, are big players. But there are many other participants, including the Henry Center’s Creation Project. Top tier universities like Oxford and Cambridge…

This third year of the Creation Project is focused upon theological anthropology, with consideration given to questions of the origin, nature, and ultimate purposes of human life. In his 1993 award-winning book, The Contemporary Christian, John Stott writes: Millions of people do not know who they are, nor that they have any significance or worth. Hence…

Over the last 20 years I have been involved in a lot of writing projects, but this is only my third big book. I am often a slow writer and each book took years of gestation and labor. These metaphors are intentionally chosen because I feel like all three of these books are my children,…

While most first and second generation reformers did not explicitly enumerate discipline as a mark of the church, they nevertheless attested to its place as an essential function of a healthy church. As Martin Bucer (1491-1551) argues in this excerpt from his work on the care of souls, in order to shepherd their congregants, pastors…

In his fascinating book on the Sermon on the Mount, Jonathan Pennington seeks to read the Sermon as Christianity’s answer to what he calls “the greatest metaphysical question that humanity has always faced—How can we experience true human flourishing?” (emphasis original, xxxiv). He offers this question as an overall reading strategy for the Sermon—a strategy…