Shuffling along the dusty paths of ancient Israel, travelers and residents would inevitably stumble upon piles of rocks. A particular pile near Gilgal, however, showed evidence of being constructed with purpose.  The mighty warrior Joshua had commissioned the creation of that rock pile after the people of Israel had arrived back in their promised land: In the future when your descendants ask their parents, “What do these stones mean?” tell them, “Israel crossed the Jordan on dry ground.” He did this so that all the peoples of the earth might know that the hand of the Lord is powerful an ..read more

The name Reformed Baptist raises numbers of eyebrows. Some Christians believe the moniker is a contradiction in terms. Others think it simply refers to Baptists who are Calvinists. Nevertheless, despite the understandable confusion, Reformed Baptists have a rich history with well-defined characteristics. The first congregation of Reformed Baptists (then called Particular Baptists) assembled in London by 1638.1 The movement was born out of the separatist movement of the English Reformation. The Particular Baptists were English Puritan dissenters who faced significant persecution while remainin ..read more

American Christianity is, in many ways, a cultural and denominational hodgepodge. Colonization led to certain emphases among American Presbyterians, Anglicans, and Baptists. And as Pentecostalism, Methodism, and others were added to the American landscape, the range of religious possibilities increased all the more. Parallel to the history of these theological traditions, however, is a history of race. In order to understand the phenomenon that we often refer to as the Black or the African-American church, it is important to understand the role of race in American society. Apart from und ..read more

Another Week of Prayer for Christian Unity has passed, and a recent picture of current Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, blessing Pope Francis has, at least in some quarters, generated controversy. Recent convert to Catholicism and former Anglican priest (and Chaplain to Queen Elizabeth II), Gavin Ashenden, for example, provocatively called the depiction, “the triumph of cosmetic presentation over reality—to be more topical, a sort of ecclesiastical drag show.”1 His point, as the title of his article clarifies, is that such actions are entirely about performance, with nothing at all of ..read more

Creeds and confessions are precious gifts to the church of the present from the church of the past, through the work of the Spirit.1 They summarize the beliefs Christians have studied, worked, debated—and even died—to state clearly from Scripture. Creeds2 are more general, usually shorter, and often more broadly accepted than confessions.3 But both types of statements teach us, challenge us, and give us guardrails for our own faith. Because creeds and confessions come to us from the past, their language eventually grows archaic to modern ears. At that point, we face the question of updating t ..read more

If I asked you to name a woman in the Bible, who would come to mind? How many could you name? Countless sermons have been preached about Esther and Ruth. We’ve scrutinized the woman at the well’s encounter with Jesus and celebrated Rahab’s strategic participation in the Israelites’ journey to the Promised Land. Throughout Scripture, women have faithfully proclaimed the gospel, offered their time and expertise, ministered to the marginalized, and actively contributed to the life and growth of their communities and the church. What richness can we gain by studying the influence of women like Ly ..read more

What is heresy? While this term is often casually thrown around in the many wars of words on social media, it does have a historic technical usage in the context of Christian theology. Simply put, we can define heresy as the deliberate affirmation of a belief that subverts a central doctrine of the faith. This introduction to heresy will first unpack this definition in a bit more detail before considering what the Bible says about heresy. Then we will examine some of the most important heresies that arose in the first centuries after Christ and consider the legacy of heresy for Christians tod ..read more

The risen Lord, Jesus of Nazareth, the Word-made-flesh, established for himself a great company of saints which is, as it were, the Word-confessed. The church is the company of saints who confess Christ while being sustained by the Word’s “continual outgoing presentation.”1 Christ presents himself in her praises, for she is one with Christ as his bride (Eph 5:25–33). The Father’s delight in the Son extends like a canopy over her—for Christ’s self-presentation to the world is only complete in and with her as the totus Christus.2 Her life shares in the Son’s praises of the Father in the Spirit ..read more

I’ve recently been teaching a course titled “The History of Heresy,” which my students have seen as an incredibly fun and informative way to learn about the formation and defense of Christian orthodoxy. We covered the good, the bad, and the ugly of church history. We learned about how the church came to discern the difference between the true gospel and false ones, between the biblical Jesus and the Jesus of inventive fantasy, between the church’s rule of faith and the foreign philosophies that Christianity was sometimes expressed in. This fascinating study also led us to look at the various ..read more

The Bible doesn’t command Christians to follow an annual cycle of religious observances. And as best we can tell from the historical record, in the decades immediately following Jesus’s ascension into heaven, they didn’t. Yet, within a few centuries those early Christians were observing an organized rotation of festivals and seasons. And ever since, that churchly calendar has shaped the religious practices of untold millions of believers. Why is this the case—why do so many Christians, for example, celebrate Lent? How did the Christian calendar come to be? For those first Christians, who clun ..read more