Category: Theology

The evangelical unity of the church is compatible with a catholic diversity. To say that theology must be catholic, then, is to affirm the necessity of involving the whole church in the project of theology. No single denomination “owns” catholicity: catholicity is no more the exclusive domain of the Roman Church than the gospel is…

Here’s some Instagrams I took this week for your viewing pleasure: These last three are from here in Knoxville (well, technically Sevierville) from a quick trip up there a few hours ago. Here in just a little while, we’re heading back down to Florida after a great weekend celebrating my friends Todd and Megan’s wedding.…

It is the unique privilege and responsibility of the people of God to perform the Scripture and continue the way. Indeed, the church constitutes a socially embodied, ongoing argument that claims God is good to and for humanity. The church’s lived interpretation of Scripture inevitably partakes of both gospel and culture, however. This is one…

The drama of doctrine is about refining the dross of textual knowledge into the gold of Christian wisdom by putting one’s understanding of the Scriptures into practice. Like medicine, doctrinal truth is of no use unless it is apporpriated. But how ought one to take doctrine? Intellectual assent is not enough; doctrine needs to capture…

Not long ago John Piper wrote a book with a rather quirky title that I think gets to the heart of what we arguing in this book. His book was called God is the Gospel. Here’s what he meant: “The highest, best, final, decisive good of the gospel, without which no other gifts would be…

As part of my trek through BlogX, I’m rearranging how I do blog series. Rather than have a landing page with descriptions of each of the series, I’m going to make a post for each series which will function like a table of contents and be updated as the series moves along. This is what…

It should be clear that the dichotomy between philosophy and theology is a false one. They are indeed two distinct disciplines, but they are not mutually exlcusive and do not operate in hermetically sealed compartments, in principle and in practice isolated from each other. The Christian philosopher must then develop an understanding of how the…

The gospel, I am arguing, is declaring the Story of Israel as resolved in the Story of Jesus. That was Paul’s gospel, and it was the apostolic gospel tradition, and that gospel shaped everything in the church until the Reformation, at which time that gospel was slightly shift and eventually – and it took the…

But Christianity has seen itself since its inception as a knowledge tradition, not opinion of unfounded belief. Words for “know” and “knowledge” occur more than 2000 times in the Bible, and are prevalent as well in the writings of the church fathers, the apologists and later theologians. For some two thousand years Christians have taken…

It may strike you as uncommonly odd for me to make this claim, but I’m going to say it anyway: this Plan of Salvation is not the gospel. The Plan of Salvation emerges from the Story of Israel/Bible and from the Story of Jesus, but the plan and the gospel are not the same big…