Letters from Luther: The Struggles (and Gifts) of Wartburg
The story of Martin Luther at the Diet of Worms is the stuff of legend. Who could forget that grand moment in which he refused the emperor’s demands and cast his whole hope on the Gospel? You can just imagine his voice resounding as he spoke those legendary words: Unless I am convinced by…
What Do We Mean By ”Apocrypha?”
It’s so important to know what a word means before you start disagreeing with someone about it. I remember a whole debate that I had with an old roommate about the ethics of punching someone that was “imminently” about to attack one of your friends or you. I insisted that you should always try to…
Augustine’s Commentary on John 13:1-5
Augustine preached his way through the Gospel of John, which is such a treat. As a fellow pastor preaching his way through John, it’s awesome to be able to see the different ways that Augustine engaged with the same Scriptures that I’m working through. I don’t always agree with him, of course. At different points,…
The Lord’s Prayer: Debts or Trespasses
I’m sure many of you have had this experience: you’re visiting a church that’s a little different than what you’re used to and the time for the Lord’s Prayer comes. Things are going pretty well until… boom! They ask God to forgive them their “debts” instead of “trespasses (or “trespasses” instead of “debts”—you get the…
Conveniently Untranslatable: Sheol, Hades, and Gehenna
One of my personal pet peeves is when pastors bust out the weird words for Hell. “You can see here that they’re talking about Gehenna, which is different than Hades and certainly much different than Hell.” Huh? Hades and Gehenna aren’t English words. You’re just leaving words in their original language and insisting that it’s…
The Seven Deadly Sins: Their Origins and Why to Love the List
I just wrapped up a sermon series on the seven deadly sins, and I have to admit, I learned to appreciate that little list more than I expected. I hadn’t seen it used all that much outside of tv shows (don’t tell me you’ve never seen a hero fight their way through a band of…
Reading the Bible in Latin is Cool
I’m back! I took some time away after the birth of my second son, and it was incredibly rewarding. I’m blessed not only to have him in my life, but to have had some time to spend with him and his brother and my wife in that transitional period as our family grew. I learned…
Keep: Deep Tradition
This is my final entry on my series on the things I inherited from Eastern Orthodoxy and my re-evaluation of them in light of my awakening to classical Protestantism. The time has come to bring this to a close. I could go on at length about the influences I want to keep and the sources…
God in the Mountains: Moving from Bulgakov to Machen
I’ve been doing this little series about thinkers and doctrine from the Eastern Orthodox world that I’m slowly moving away from since uncovering classical Protestantism, and today, I’m looking at Sergei Bulgakov. Bulgakov is a towering figure in Eastern Orthodoxy, though not without controversy. He was accused of heresy for his teachings on Sophiology (more…
The Desert Fathers and Works Righteousness? Say it ain’t so!
In my last post, I mentioned that there were some theological tools I picked up from my mentor that I’m not sure I want to keep. For the most part, they’re Eastern Orthodox. Since I didn’t have classical Protestant thinkers at my fingertips when I connected with so many of these resources, they were great…
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Classic Theology 