Theology
What 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…
Read MoreWhy Preaching the Cross is Not Enough
We are in an era of wonderful gospel-centered seminaries, gospel-centered books, gospel-centered ministries, and gospel-centered preaching. But we have a problem. It’s great that people are preaching about Jesus and how salvation comes by grace through faith. Gospel-centered preaching helps people see how parenting, forgiveness, and serving are rooted in the gospel. We’ve learned to…
Read More3 Thinkers Who Can Help Us Understand Today’s Cultural Challenges
I’m really a Reformation scholar. I’m a 16th and 17th-century guy, but in my late forties, I’d pretty much said everything I wanted to say on those topics and was looking for another historical challenge. Around that same time, I was approached by Rod Dreher of The American Conservative and Justin Taylor of Crossway, and…
Read MoreA Conversation with Dr. J. Michael Thigpen about Human Flourishing and the Creation Mandate
How are we to flourish in the presence of sin? And what role, if any, does the creation mandate—the commands which flow from our creation in God’s image—play in our flourishing in the presence of sin? What does that mandate have to do with justice and the gospel? These are questions that Phoenix Seminary Provost…
Read MoreDiscipleship: A Local Church Responsibility
Just before Jesus ascended back into heaven, he gave his disciples one final command: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you…
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