19 Sep 2018
Posted by Steven Wedgeworth 
It's time to bring our series on the identity and government of the church to a conclusion. You can find the previous installments here: Part 1: The Crisis of Rome and Its Claims of Ultimate Authority Part 2: Church Origins and Officers in the New Testament Part 3: Bishop-Elders and Bishops in the Late...
Read more → 14 Sep 2018
Posted by Steven Wedgeworth 
As we move into the third century, the relevant body of Christian literature grows considerably. The episcopalian structure of government has become more universal, and all of the writers of this period reference a singular bishop as holding a place of authority. They also largely repeat Irenaeus' argument...
Read more → 13 Sep 2018
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson 
God changes us over time. That change begins with the lesson--which may take a lifetime to learn in the way that it really needs to be learned--that the first thing we must do is to give up trying to justify, or vindicate, ourselves. Abandoning the desire for self-justification is the necessary precondition...
Read more → 13 Sep 2018
Posted by Steven Wedgeworth 
We are continuing our look at the way the early church organized itself. You can see the earlier posts here: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. This post will highlight some of the more important development that would eventually lead to the Roman Catholic claims about the relationship between Peter and Rome's...
Read more → 11 Sep 2018
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson 
Augustine talks a lot about moms in the Confessions: particularly his own mother and the church as the mother of the faithful--though not Mary. This is unsurprising, because Augustine knows nothing of Marian devotion. But it is not only the church who is the mother of believers; Scripture is, too....
Read more → 06 Sep 2018
Posted by Steven Wedgeworth 
We are continuing our series on the identity and government of the Christian Church and how it relates to the claims of the Roman Catholic Church. My first post explained why this question is freshly relevant and urgent for Roman Catholics, and it laid out the Roman Catholic claims about how the Christian...
Read more → 09 Aug 2018
Posted by Brian Mattson 
Eastern Orthodox theologian David Bentley Hart has written an essay on the Pauline terms “spirit,” (πνευμα) “soul,” (ψυχη), and “flesh” (σαρξ), maintaining that modern readers are greatly (or perhaps completely) hindered in their understanding of them. He lays blame on a kind...
Read more → 27 Jul 2018
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson 
"Literalism" frequently gets a bad rap nowadays when it comes to the Bible. The word "literal" is fraught with ambiguities, especially in its modern usages, which I have no intention of getting into here. But the practice of reading the Bible ad litteram--"according to the natural sense of the words,"...
Read more → 19 Jun 2018
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson 
John 6.22ff. is a text that has long been used in various ways and to various ends in debates about the Eucharist. Christ himself gives a clue to its proper interpretation in v. 63: "It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is of no avail. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life" (ESV)....
Read more → 29 May 2018
Posted by Steven Wedgeworth 
Athanasius of Alexandria's doctrine of the deity of Christ rest upon two basic concepts. These are that the divine nature is simple and incapable of division and that the Son is generated or begotten from the essence of the Father, that divine essence which is simple. When you combine these two concepts,...
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