19 Aug 2019
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson 
Plato, in the Phaedo, had Socrates claim that philosophy was “practice for dying and death.” It was a sentiment that was to exercise great influence down through the centuries, all the way to Heidegger’s “Being-toward-death” and beyond. (That last part works better if you say it in the voice...
Read more → 14 Aug 2019
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson 
[This post is a little bit of an awkward fit for TCI, but I need somewhere to put it. And Melville...was...raised as a Calvinist...so...I guess it works?] The 200th anniversary of the birth of America’s greatest writer of fiction just passed. I mean Herman Melville, naturally. Melville was more...
Read more → 12 Aug 2019
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson 
In Institutes 3.3.19, John Calvin gives a “summary of the gospel” (cf. 3.3.1), in which he makes the important point that “the gospel,” the good news that Scripture and the church proclaim, includes not only the forgiveness or remission of sins (justification), but also renewal (sanctification),...
Read more → 06 Aug 2019
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson 
On August 1, 1537, Philip Melanchthon wrote a letter to the Lutheran poet Eobanus Hessus intended to serve as prefatory material for his versification of the Psalter, the Psalterium Davidis carmine redditum (David’s Psalter Rendered in Verse), in which Hessus put all 150 Psalms into Latin elegiac couplets....
Read more → 01 Aug 2019
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson 
In Sermon 162C (Dolbeau 10), on Paul’s rebuke of Peter in Galatians 2 (on the history of the exegesis of this passage, cf. my essay here), Augustine gives a helpful sketch of the various “levels” on which one can speak of the genesis and authorship or “voice” of Scripture, or, to put it another...
Read more → 31 Jul 2019
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson 
George Buchanan was perhaps the finest Latin poet to write after the close of antiquity. I’ve discussed him previously here, here, and here. One of his most-loved works in verse is his Poetic paraphrase of the Psalms of David (Psalmorum Davidis paraphrasis poetica), the first complete edition of which...
Read more → 22 Jul 2019
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson 
We’ve treated the Protestant educational legacy at various times here in the past: see, for example, this; or this; or this. One aspect we haven’t touched on is the premium that Presbyterians in particular placed on the education of women. This is arguably a legacy of the Ulster Presbyterianism...
Read more → 26 Jun 2019
Posted by Jordan Ballor 
Those who honor Christ only as their Mediator are easily tempted to call in his help as the physician for one’s sin-sick soul, but then, once that soul is conscious of its salvation and healing, to treat the Savior as we often do our earthly physicians — once healed, we let them go and head off again...
Read more → 12 Jun 2019
Posted by Steven Wedgeworth 
In his famous "Third Theological Oration," Gregory of Nazianzus gives this rule for interpreting biblical passages about Christ: To give you the explanation in one sentence. What is lofty you are to apply to the Godhead, and to that Nature in Him which is superior to sufferings and incorporeal; but all that...
Read more → 19 Mar 2019
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson 
Martin Luther’s Large Catechism, the current text for Reformed Theological Seminary’s Paideia Center reading groups, is a wonderful source of simple, practical, straightforward exposition of the essentials of the Christian faith, covering the Ten Commandments, the Apostles’ Creed, the Lord’s...
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