God's Good Word

Jonathan Landry Cruse
Nov 23, 2020
At some point in your schooling, you have probably come across the handy diagram that explains the various components of a strong, dramatic narrative. It’s a little line that begins steadily with the exposition, takes a vicious turn skyward with the conflict and rising action, reaches its peak with...

A Growing Church

Ben Franks
Nov 20, 2020
The evangelization of the Roman Empire is one of the remarkable chapters in the history of the church. [1] Behind the story of Christianity’s transformation from an overlooked and misunderstood sect to the official religion of the Empire stands an important question: why did Christianity gain such...
Art deco...or art demo?

The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self - Part 2

Mortification of Spin
Nov 18, 2020
Clearly, we live in times of sexual identity chaos. Arguments that would have sounded unconscionable just a few decades ago are now plausible, and are defended, adopted, even pridefully celebrated. How did we get here? What seeds were planted that flourished into the modern thinking of sexuality as...
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Mortification of Spin

They Will Never Perish

Amy Mantravadi
Nov 17, 2020
Note: This post concludes Amy's series on Roman Catholic and Reformed Protestant views of justification. Find previous posts in this series below . Does God want us to be certain of our salvation? “Work out your salvation with fear and trembling,” Saint Paul wrote, “for it is God who is at work in...

Behold, Children Are...

Gabriel Fluhrer
Nov 17, 2020
Imagine the Brady Bunch, the hit TV show from the 70's, re-packed for today's viewers. Would the plot identify with the majority of younger couples? What about the majority of younger, evangelical Christian couples? When I've asked young Christian couples about children and when they expect to have...

Blessing in Sickness

Andrew J. Miller
Nov 13, 2020
Some Scripture passages simply take our breath away. The gospel is precious however it is expressed, but not all sentences are made equal. Romans 8’s statements are beloved for its content—the truth that nothing can separate the believer from God’s love—yet the way that truth is expressed packs a...

The Good News of the Return of the King

Louis Markos
Nov 12, 2020
Michael T. Jahosky, The Good News of the Return of the King: The Gospel in Middle-Earth (Wipf & Stock, 2020), 238 pp. During the first half of the twentieth century, a brave cadre of poet-critics, most hailing from the American South, rose up to save poetry, and the language of poetry, from the...
Break out your Latin dictionary!

Augustine and the Doctrine of Creation

Mortification of Spin
Nov 11, 2020
Believe it or not, some Presbyterians do jump the fence and become Baptist! Such is the case of Gavin Ortlund. Gavin is a theologian and pastor of First Baptist Church of Ojai in California. As the idea of doctrinal and theological retrieval has risen in prominence, what then is theological...
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Mortification of Spin

Covenant Theology: Biblical, Theological, and Historical Perspectives

Ryan McGraw
Nov 5, 2020
Guy Prentiss Waters, Nicholas J. Reid, and John R. Muether, eds., Covenant Theology: Biblical, Theological, and Historical Perspectives (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2020). This volume begins with a clear assertion: “Covenant theology is Reformed theology” (23). While other theological traditions have...
At rest, at peace

The End of the Christian Life

Mortification of Spin
Nov 4, 2020
Todd Billings is professor of Reformed Theology at Western Theological Seminary in Holland, MI, and a minister in the Reformed Church in America. He’s the author of Rejoicing in Lament: Wrestling with Incurable Cancer and Life in Christ, but his most recent book—The End of the Christian Life: How...
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Mortification of Spin