The Calvinist International
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 way, […]
The following is an excerpt from Thomas Goodwin’s Of Gospel Holiness In the Heart and Life. It is found in vol. 7 of his Works, available here. This excerpt begins towards the beginning of the first chapter of the second book and continues through the end of the third chapter of that book. It can […]
Here in the South we always bless our food before we eat. Heck, we don’t just bless food, we bless everything. We bless you when you sneeze. We bless your day when we see you, and we even hang up kitschy signs in our homes to “bless this mess.” So, it’s part of our cultural […]
Several months ago, I wrote a brief post on beauty’s relation to cognition, rather than desire, in Thomas Aquinas. Aesthetics, that is, must have its relation to the rational and the real,1 rather than to some unspecified or underdeveloped sense of longing. Perhaps some confirmation is found in the first chapter of Paul’s letter to the Philippians, […]
In On Obligations 3.21-2, Cicero says: If a person deprives his neighbour of something, and furthers his own advantage by another’s loss, such behaviour flies in the face of nature more than death or poverty or pain or anything which can affect our persons or our external possessions; for first and foremost it undermines the fellowship […]
With great vigor, Calvin unfolds the Pauline teaching of justification by faith alone from Luke’s report of Paul’s words in Pisidian Antioch in Acts 13.38-9 (“Let it be known to you, therefore, brothers, that through this man forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and by him everyone who believes is freed from everything from […]
In 1 Timothy 6.3, Paul warns Timothy to be on the lookout lest …τις ἑτεροδιδασκαλεῖ καὶ μὴ προσέρχεται ὑγιαίνουσι λόγοις, τοῖς τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, καὶ τῇ κατ’ εὐσέβειαν διδασκαλίᾳ…. “…anyone teach something other [than true doctrine] and does not agree with healthful words–those of our Lord Jesus Christ–and the teaching that accords with […]
The late John Stott encouraged fellow believers to read the book of Acts in tandem with the book of Revelation. Just as the Apostle John wrote two volumes from a heavenly perspective, Stott says, so Luke wrote two volumes from the perspective of a physician, that is, from an earthly perspective. So, Acts and Revelation are […]
In 1 Corinthians 4, Paul, in one sense the “father” of the Corinthian believers, exhorts these same believers to engage in godly mimesis–to be imitators of him. How are they to do it? How are they to know what they are to do? To answer that very question–“for that very reason”–Paul has sent Timothy to them. […]
There is a sense in which nothing we usually consider to be in the category of adiaphora (food and drink, certainly; but what about politics? economics? that old and tasty red herring, “culture”?), after the resurrection of Christ, can be called “common” any longer. In the economy of God’s reconciling work in Christ, there is […]