Theology
What Do Mormons Really Believe?
The term Mormonism denotes a religious group currently headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah, who call themselves the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. But since the foundation of Mormonism, there have been at least 400 splinter groups of the LDS church that began with the founder, Joseph Smith. Mormons believe that God, through…
Read MoreBorn from Israel to Redeem the World
The stage was set. The world was waiting for a Savior. And Jesus entered in quietly, almost unnoticed, in a little stable in a little town. Christianity was born through a Jewish Savior. But he didn’t come right away. He didn’t come after Adam sinned or after God chose Abraham. He didn’t come after David…
Read MoreBorn into the Greco-Roman World
The Apostle Paul wrote that Jesus was born at the fullness of time (Gal. 4:4). In the last post, we looked at why Jesus was born at the right time theologically—God, in his providence, allowed sin to increase so that we would see our need for a Savior. But, historically speaking, God was up to…
Read MoreBorn in the Fullness of Time
Have you ever wondered why Jesus came when he did? Why didn’t the Father send Jesus just after Adam and Eve sinned? Or why not in 500 BC or 500 AD? Why send him around the year 4 BC? In writing to the Galatians, Paul slips in an interesting argument for Christmas: But when the fullness…
Read MoreWhat Can Be Done About Death?
Over several weeks on the Shepherds and Scholars blog, we’ve been exploring death’s refrain in Genesis chapter 5. We’ve looked at what death is and what causes it. Now, we look at the most important question: What, if anything, can be done about it? What possible hope could there be from such a deep problem?…
Read MoreDoes Every Christian Persevere in the Marathon of Faith?
If you’ve been paying attention to Christian celebrity culture in the last five years or so, you can probably think of an example of a deconstruction or deconversion story—the story of a person who although they once professed to trust Jesus for salvation, and perhaps even seemed to be bearing some fruit, now claims they…
Read MoreWhere Does Death Come From?
When we look for the cause of death in the Scriptures, we find something that may be surprising. Death is first announced by God’s own lips. God told Adam in Genesis 2 that he could surely eat of any tree but one, and that on the day he ate from the one forbidden tree, he…
Read MoreWhat Is Death?
Do you remember how you learned the Alphabet? A, B, C, D… and so on, right? At some point, you probably had a nice picture book to help you out: “A” is for apple you dutifully learned. “B” is for ball. “C” is for cat. The acrostic wasn’t always so cute. In seventeenth-century New England,…
Read MoreHow Philip Rieff’s Three Worlds Help Us Understand Cultural Change
With the title of my book, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution, I tip my hat to the psychological sociologist, Philip Rieff, and his book, The Triumph of the Therapeutic. Rieff has been particularly influential on two points. First, he’s clear that the…
Read MoreHe Descended into Hell, or Did He? | Jesus’s Descent and Why It Matters for Christian Theology
The Apostles’ Creed is one of the church’s most ancient confessions. To this day, it is still used by many Protestant denominations and the Roman Catholic Church. Yet it contains a particular phrase that has caused great debate throughout the ages. Here is the creed: I believe in God the Father almighty, Creator of heaven…
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