Kyle R. Hughes (PhD, Radboud University, Nijmegen) is the author of three books, including How the Spirit Became God: The Mosaic of Early Christian Pneumatology and Teaching for Spiritual Formation: A Patristic Approach to Christian Education in a Convulsed Age, as well as several peer-reviewed journal articles on patristic theology and on Christian education. His current book project, Scripting the Son, explores the intersection of Old Testament interpretation and the development of Christology in the second and third centuries. Kyle, his wife Karisa, and their three children live in Powder ..read more

People are afraid of demons. What are demons afraid of? Have you ever wondered? Maybe you would think it strange to imagine demons being afraid of anything. The accounts of demonic possession in the Gospels, and the attempts to represent such possession in films, can give even the bravest image-bearer pause as we consider the unusual capabilities of these sinister spirits. But demons do feel fear—of something, and of someone. Reading a Gospel account of an exorcism (which is the term for a person’s deliverance from demonic possession), we can see that Jesus’s ministry included these encounter ..read more

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

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth … (Rev 21:1) That influential twentieth-century poet and prophet, John Lennon, once penned these words: Imagine there’s no heaven; it’s easy if you try. No hell below us, above us only sky. “Imagine” is my least favorite Lennon song. Sadly, Lennon isn’t a dreamer at all in this song, though he claims that he is. He’s living without real imagination or hope, foolishly thinking that the answer to death and war, greed and hunger, is to be found in a world with nothing below it or above it. Lennon couldn’t be more wrong. In fact, the answer to all the w ..read more

Jesus’s crucifixion and resurrection rightly get the emphasis in both academic and pastoral treatments of Christ’s work. The cross and the empty tomb are the crux of God’s work of salvation, the fulcrum on which everything else included in that work—Christ’s active obedience, his ascension, etc.—hinges. What is often omitted from our understanding of the Triduum, the three days of Christ’s Passion, is the final day, the day of Christ’s descent to hell. While certain Christian traditions, including Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Reformed Protestantism (especially Anglicanism and Pre ..read more

Easter Sunday is right around the corner. As you prepare for your service, meditating on the glory of the cross, take a look at these Good Friday and Easter worship songs and hymns. Some are traditional, some are contemporary, and some are somewhere in between—but all are excellent options to celebrate Resurrection Sunday. Plus, you’ll find at least one Scripture reference for each song. This can help you see the bigger picture behind the lyrics. Sure, we know why we sing songs on Easter—it’s all about Jesus. But his story is found throughout Scripture, as you’ll see from the inspiration of t ..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

Every year new students walk into classrooms ready to build upon their first-year biblical language skills by learning how to exegete the Hebrew or Greek text. They are taught how to examine the nuances of words, the rules of grammar. They discover the complexities of manuscript variation, genre, historical context, and the proper use of resources. They are then taught to pull all that data together into an interpretation, usually culminating in a lengthy exegetical research paper that showcases their newly acquired skills. But for many students, learning the exegesis process is more than lea ..read more

Elliot Ritzema is an editor at Lexham Press and a master of sacred theology student at Nashotah House Theological Seminary. He is the editor of Lexham’s Spurgeon Commentary series. He has a master’s of divinity degree from Regent College in Vancouver, BC, and an undergraduate degree in journalism from the University of Richmond. We asked Elliot to share his top resources with us, and he shared the following eleven books along with some brief commentary for each. The resources we do carry at Logos will have an add-to-cart link. Resources without this link will need to be purchased elsewhere (f ..read more