At Southern Seminary, over the last couple of years, we have been enjoying the work and ministry of the Commonweal Project as it has been hosting conferences, bringing in various guest speakers from all over the country, and offering a number of lectures from Southern Seminary’s own faculty. If you are not familiar with the…
Once called “a dismal science” by historian Thomas Carlyle, economics is often sidelined, even in the academic world. But economics is, in fact, one of most important social sciences. With that in mind, my aim in this brief article is to look at economics, labor, business, money, industry, and work from a theological perspective. Further,…
Preparing a sermon from the New Testament to serve a local congregation has always been a challenging spiritual labor. Exegesis and application require a pastor to bridge a language gap from Greek to English, a cultural gap from the first century to the contemporary ethos, and a geographical gap from the Levant to the Western…
I ask the reader’s indulgence as I weave personal narrative into my essay, for my thinking has emerged in these past years through a range of travels, events, and assignments, from which I’ll draw in making my case. On my first visit to Mount Hermon on Israel’s northern border, our tour guide pointed out the…
Overview This brief article examines the nature of human work from a biblical and theological perspective. Creation frames human work because God created humans as his image bearers, giving them the task of building civilization through procreation and vocation. But humanity’s purposeful work became cursed work through sin. Now the gospel transforms and restores our work…
Christopher J. H. Wright is one of the leading evangelical voices today addressing the theology of the church’s mission. Wright, an Anglican pastor and Old Testament (OT) scholar, is a key figure in the Lausanne Movement, including his role as the Chair of the Cape Town 2010 Statement Working Group, which drafted the Cape Town…
Introduction The headlines over the past few months attest our society is experiencing rapid transformation culminating from decades of moral mutiny. Events in Ferguson, Indianapolis, Baltimore, Dallas, Charleston and Supreme Court decisions is a predictable course of America’s trajectory because the moral revolutionaries have secularized the public conscience. The myriad of competing voices through the…
Introduction Our society is one typified as postmodern: it is a society that has left modernism behind it, at least in part. Modernism had its roots in the Renaissance and attained its full flowering in the Enlightenment. The philosopher Immanuel Kant described the Enlightenment as man’s liberation from the dependency in which he had been…
Engaging the Doctrine of Revelation. By Matthew Levering. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2014. 363+xi pages. $44.99. Hardback. One of the biggest divides between Roman Catholics and Protestants continues to be the authority of the Church and Scripture. Roman Catholics tend to have a high view of both sources of authority, allowing for each to construct doctrine.…
Summer 2015
The well-known church historian, Jaroslav Pelikan, famously begins his book Jesus through the Centuries with the following observation: “Regardless of what anyone may personally think or believe about him, Jesus of Nazareth has been the dominant figure in the history of western culture for almost twenty centuries.” ((Jaroslav Pelikan, Jesus Through the Centuries: His Place…
Introduction The church has historically believed that Jesus Christ is both fully God and fully man, possessing two natures—the one divine, the other human—united in one person. The church has also historically affirmed that these two natures remain distinct in the God-man: the divine nature, characterized by omnipresence, omnipotence, omniscience, eternality, and the like, remains…
Orientation The term “incomprehensible” has changed in emphasis over the years. It has strengthened in meaning and become rougher. It now means gibberish or nonsense, and usually refers to bits of verbal communication that are impossible for various reasons to make sense of. It’s a black or white term, a term of rebuke, a put…
Abstract Robert W. Jenson has recently written a short article clarifying his argument against the doctrine of the Logos asarkos (Word without flesh). In this article I offer a critique of his remarks, showing that his reasoning has two consequences that are problematic. First, it implies that the Second Person of the Trinity incarnate has…
