By all accounts, John Calvin, the great Genevan reformer and systematician of the Reformation age, was an educated man. His early educational endeavors help set a trajectory toward a rigorous pattern of intellectual engagement that will mark his ministry. If pastors would cultivate a robust life of the mind (and they should), then paying attention…
John Calvin is a heavyweight in the history of Christian thought. When thinking about any particular point of theology, theologians of all stripes are wise to wrestle with his ideas. Love him or hate him, his influence is unquestionably felt across the world. Karl Barth, an intellectual giant in his own right, says, Calvin is…
In 1557 John Calvin wrote his preface to the commentary he had produced on the Psalms. In the preface, Calvin gives an important perspective on this particular OT book. I offer it here for your reading pleasure. I have been accustomed to call this book, I think not inappropriately, An Anatomy of the Soul; for…
Did you know Thomas Jefferson, one of America’s founding fathers, was a deist? One of the things he believed as a deist is that Jesus was not God. Furthermore, Jefferson did not believe Jesus rose from the grave. Rejecting anything he deemed irrational, Jefferson heavily edited the Bible and produced his own version. His version…
Here are a few things we believe are worth a look. I’m a baptist who lives in land full of Lutherans. Therefore I decided it was worthwhile to read the Augsburg Confession, the Lutheran statement of faith submitted to Charles V in 1530. It’s a worshipful document, even when you don’t agree with every word.…
Brown, Peter. Augustine of Hippo: A Biography. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2013. 568 pages. $29.95 Biographical Sketch of the Author Writing a biography of a monumental figure such as Augustine is no small task. Augustine stands atop the mountain of…
In recent years there as has been a renewal of interest in the idea of the pastor as scholar and the scholar as pastor. I remember attending an event in 2009 where John Piper and D. A. Carson spoke on this issue for nearly two hours. Piper represented the scholarly pastor while Carson was the…
