Jake MailhotCalvinists believe in total depravity: no one is untouched by the effects of sin and we all have mixed motives in what we do. How then would one account for the goodness, the beauty, the mercies, and the glories we see in this depraved world? Common...
Mark WardInternet meanderings recently landed me on the Amazon product page for the bookmark below. It’s the kind of bookmark you’re supposed to give to a friend or loved one, and it bears two Bible verses. Notice the citation from Genesis 31 in particular...
Paul BurkhartI recently found myself looking, back through A.W. Tozer’s The Knowledge of the Holy and was reminded just how good of a book it is for seminarians to read every now and then. In a sermon preached by Tozer on God’s Holiness, he tells the...
Ryan BurnsOur daughter, Emery, was born on February 6th of this year. We’re finishing up our first year of seminary. Naturally my wife and I were the recipients of about as much advice as you can stomach. Everyone seemed to have their two cents, and if every...
We’ve talked before on this site about how seminary has changed. The days where all you need is a Bible, notebook, and a library card are over. There is a whole world of resources available, means to access them, ways to organize your time at...
The New Year is a time for new beginnings. This year, challenge yourself to make Bible study a daily habit. Not only will you be meditating on the Word of God every single day, but hopefully new insights and reflections will become apparent as you...
As a kid, maybe 10 or 12, I was leafing through my red-letter edition of the Bible and I noticed that there was one section of unbroken red text that was longer than any other. It was Matthew 5–7. I thought that was kind of cool, and if my memory...
By Rebecca Dobyns In seminary, Greek is always the subject everyone winces about. I have heard more “I’m sorry”s or “Have fun with that”s about taking Greek than about any other subject, except perhaps Hebrew. Granted, much of it is in jest, and...
Logos StaffFollowing the Council of Trent in the sixteenth century, the Latin Vulgate became the official Latin Bible of the Roman Catholic church—and that after centuries of dominance as the preferred Bible of the Western world. The Reformation revived...
Chuck McKnightNow it happened that in those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus to register all the empire. (This first registration took place when Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to be registered, each one to his own town. So Joseph...
When news reached me last week that I. Howard Marshall had passed away, my mind ran, of course, to pieces he’d written, books on my shelf and on my computer. The primary two works that came to mind were his New Testament Theology and his commentary...
What do you think is the most “Christmasy” book in the New Testament? The obvious frontrunners are Matthew and Luke, especially their opening portions. One of the reasons these books will show up so often in Christmas-time sermons and Bible studies...
Learning theology is one of the main purposes and joys of seminary. But through the course of your education there, you’re likely to have many of your proper theological convictions challenged, shaped, and changed. And yet, even as we’re going...
Good contextualization is hard work. Like an onion, there are so many layers to consider when communicating the message of the Bible. If you miss just one of these layers, your message could end up falling flat. And contextualization isn’t just a...
Kristen SchaferOne of the best ways to prepare yourself for any theological question is by having a well-rounded library. When you have a large library that includes a diverse array of books, topics, and authors, you’re queries will return more results...
G. K. Chesterton: Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about. (85) I...
By Noah Myers Being out of college for three years before I started seminary it took me a bit before I could get back into the groove of schoolwork, online classes also proved a new challenge. All of that to say, I’ve learned a couple lessons...
I was born in a Bible study forest, but I didn’t know it. Trees every few feet, tree upon tree. I got to know them pretty well; I could hardly help it: sycamore, acacia, olive, cedar, fig, palm, terebinth. An occasional glade on a rise in that...
The languages of the world are often represented in a family-tree diagram in which “parent” languages such as Proto-Slavic branch out into “child” languages such as Russian, Polish, and Croatian. Just as in real-life human lineages, the parents may...
Abraham Kuyper’s influence has been felt throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in the Netherlands and the Dutch Reformed Church. But his legacy had been largely washed away by the churning of history. As modern Christians...
Ryan NelsonA couple weeks ago, you couldn’t go on Facebook without seeing someone link to this plugin that calculated your most-used words. It runs through everything you’ve ever posted on Facebook to determine what words you say the most. The...
Good contextualization is critical to communicating the message of the Bible. But good contextualization is hard work. It requires intimate knowledge of both Scripture and the audience that you’re trying to reach. In his new book, Excellent...
I was sitting at a lunch table with some acquaintances. Acquaintances, not friends. I admit we sat there for a while staring at our food and waiting for the awkwardness to subside. Kind of like me and my Bible sometimes, I’m sad to say. But then, at...
I was somewhat surprised, after I posted about Jesus’ use of the diminutive κυνάριον in his delightful conversation with the Syrophoenician woman (Matt 15:26–27), to have several people make comments like this one: Was the historical Jesus really...
The Logos Pros are here to help the church. And one of the things the church is processing right now, along with much of the rest of the world, is the role digital tools will play in their reading. D.G. writes: I seek out many of the volumes...
Guest AuthorA while back, Randy Brown, creator of BibleBuyingGuide.com, shared how he chooses a Bible for preaching. Randy reviews Bibles in all price ranges to help people make the best choice for their budget. His mission is to promote Bible reading and...
Liz MeltonChaplains come from all walks of life and serve as Christian leaders with spiritual influence. Whether working in hospitals, in the military, or elsewhere, chaplains apply leadership skills to influence people through the gospel and provide those...
Imagine being one of the first people to use Facebook. Without many others to connect with, would the social media company hold any value to you? Probably not. But add a couple dozen of your close friends to the site, and suddenly you’d probably...
Denise J. MurphyFor our little family it is the inevitable season of attack, the month before moving our family of five across Country to Seminary. There are the weekends packed of visiting family, not living in our own home, my husband working in a separate state...
One of the hardest things for me to wrap my brain around as a Christian is how a God who defines himself as love (1 John 4:8) and defines the greatest form of love as laying down your life for someone else (John 15:13) could lead Israel on a...