Grace

Unspoken assumptions make the argument. Debates become fruitful when unspoken assumptions get clarified. Many of us are accustomed to calling these assumptions presuppositions—controlling beliefs that determine how we think. In a culture that has largely accepted the belief that the only thing that...

This week on Theology on the Go we are replaying an old conversation between our host, Dr. Jonathan Master and Dr. Rosaria Champagne Butterfield. Dr. Butterfield is a former tenured professor of English and women’s studies at Syracuse University, converted to Christ in 1999 in what she describes as...

You shall teach them to your sons, talking of them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road and when you lie down and when you rise up. Deuteronomy 11:19, NASB It's somewhat ironic for me to be writing an article on helping children love church history. I love church history, and...

I am an avid history reader. I have been since about the age of five. That’s 48 years of history reading. I became an avid church history reader when I came to faith in Christ in 1983. Since then church history, among all sorts of historical works, has been a staple part of my reading diet. As a...

When I was in elementary school, I discovered the joy of reading biographies. In my mind's eye, I can still see the shelf containing a series about important figures in American history. I loved the stories and was disappointed when I finished the last book. First impressions leave a mark, so I...

Why should history have to make a case for itself? No one questions why we should study mathematics or science. The humanities are always having to justify their existence in a way that is not expected of other disciplines. Even so, I do not mind the question—either as a writer of historical...

Christmas is fast approaching and images of Mary are everywhere – from cards to Nativity scenes – but she is strangely absent from many, if not most Protestant pulpits. Yes, she may be accorded a passing reference in the Christmas narrative, but she can come across very much as a bit-part, or an ‘...

One of the most important things we need to pray for is our evangelistic efforts. When we fail to pray for our evangelism efforts we could be in danger of acting as if it is within our ability to save individuals. Because God is the great Savior, saving people in Jesus Christ, we must pray and ask...

There are any number of passages on prayer to which one could turn. But there is something powerfully succinct about Paul’s words in Colossians 4: “Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving” (v. 2). Here we have directions concerning our attitude and response, which...

On November 19, 1590, the Italian Reformer Girolamo Zanchi died while visiting the University of Heidelberg where he had once been professor of theology. He was buried with honors. His epitaph read, “Here lie the bones of the Italian Zanchi, exiled from his homeland for love of Christ.” The epitaph...