We find here a passage with great contrasts and comparisons. Peter the Confessor is also Satan, and the blind man who saw men as trees walking provides a good picture of the disciples. “And he cometh to Bethsaida; and they bring a blind man unto him, and besought him to touch him . . .” …
Poetics of Grace
“Similarly, William H. Halewood argues that the pervasive Augustinianism of the period — Augustine as interpreted by the Reformation — led Donne, Herbert, Vaughan, Marvell, and Milton to develop a poetic mode exploring man’s radical sinfulness and God’s overpowering grace” (Lewalski, Protestant Poetics, p. 14).
The Only Font of Our Authority
“Granted that only the power of God can make the blind see and the dead live, where is this power to be found? How can preachers become such channels of it as to be ‘servants through whom’ others will believe? There is no clearer exposition in the New Testament of the place of divine power …
Not From the Theory Down
“As a doctor working in a slum area with many immigrant residents, I see multiculturalism from the ground up rather than from the theory down. And it is clear from what I see almost every day that not all cultural values are compatible or can be reconciled by the enunciation of platitudes. The idea that …
Darwin or Design?
This next Monday, my brother Gordon Wilson will be involved in a debate on Darwinism at the University of Idaho. Those who are here in the area should come, and should bring an evolutionist friend with them. Should be very good.
Demented and Twaddlesome
In his statement endorsing Rudy Giuliani, Pat Robertson said this: “To me, the overriding issue before the American people is the defense of our population from the blood lust of Islamic terrorists.” This evil blood lust of theirs must be distinguished from the domestic and homegrown blood lust of ours, which is constitutionally protected, and …
Baptism and Covenant Life
INTRODUCTION: Baptism in water can be a complicated subject—and yet the author of Hebrews treats it as one of the Christian “basics.” This should make us wary because the evangelical Christian world doesn’t have this sorted out yet, and yet it should also make us eager to sort it out—to grow up into maturity as …
Henry York and His Cousins
Next month Random House will be releasing Nate’s first book in a fantastic trilogy (using both senses of fantastic here). The name of the first book is 100 Cupboards — the next two will be Dandelion Fire and The Chestnut King. You can pre-order Cupboards here, but if you are not quite ready to do …
Leaven of the Pharisees
The passage we consider here culminates in Christ’s rebuke of the disciples for their continued and ongoing hardness of heart. The picture we have of hardness in a believer is most instructive — provided we are not hard of heart ourselves. “In those days the multitude being very great, and having nothing to eat, Jesus …
A Bedrock of Calvinism
“It is hardly necessary now to argue that the theological tenor of the English Church in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries was firmly Protestant, even Calvinist, though literary critics have been in some danger of forgetting that fact as they stress Roman Catholic influences upon Donne or the medieval literary heritage of Herbert, …