At the 2018 General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), the Committee on Review of Presbytery Records (CRPR) presented its annual report. The Assembly tasks this committee with reviewing the minutes of each of the PCA's Presbyteries. CRPR relays to the Assembly any constitutional...

Francis Turretin was the grandson of a Protestant Italian merchant who had emigrated to Beza's Geneva. When Turretin died in Geneva in September 1687, nearly 170 years had passed since Martin Luther had sparked the Protestant Reformation by posting the Ninety-Five Theses. During that period of time...

One does not have to preach, teach, or even read the New Testament for long in order to discover how steeped its authors are in the Old Testament. The OT surfaces on virtually every page of the NT. It serves a range of purposes, whether for witness to unbelief or for the instruction and guidance of...

Mark Dever and Jonathan Leeman, eds. Baptist Foundations: Church Government for an Anti-Institutional Age. Nashville: B&H, 2015., xxiii + 397pp. US $44.99/£25.99 Often overlooked in the recent conservative resurgence in the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) has been the recovery of ecclesiology...

Why did Luke end Acts in the way that he did? The closing verses of Acts 28 serve, in part, to demonstrate Luke's point that the mission of the apostle Paul is a complete one. But in what sense is a description of Paul under house arrest for two years a conclusion to a largely itinerant ministry...

The ending of the Acts of the Apostles has proven a puzzle, to say the least.[1] In the fourth century, John Chrysostom asked, "But of [Paul's] affairs after the two years [i.e., of Acts 28:30], what say we? (The writer) leaves the hearer athirst for more: the heathen authors do the same (in their...

Scot McKnight, Kingdom Conspiracy: Returning to the Radical Mission of the Local Church . Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2014. x + 289pp. $21.99 The Kingdom of God has captured the attention and imagination of many recent evangelical writers. Even so, nothing resembling a theological consensus concerning...

Brian S. Rosner, Paul and the Law: Keeping the Commandments of God . NSBT 31; Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 2013, 249 pp. $24.00./£15.00 The apostle Peter famously said that "in all [Paul's] letters ... there are some things ... that are hard to understand" (2 Pet 3:16). These words can hardly...

Judging from the number of books about preaching churning from the presses each year, Christian ministers are constantly looking for ways to improve their preaching. This desire for improvement is commendable. If we are to grow in grace (2 Pet 3:18), and to fan into flame those gifts that God has...

American humorist Mark Twain once wrote a correspondent, "I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead." To explain a matter succinctly without sacrificing depth, penetration, or clarity tests the mettle of any writer. When the subject of study is the life and teaching...

Unlocking Romans By J.R. Daniel Kirk 245 p. Eerdmans (November 2008) It is difficult to overestimate the influence of E. P. Sanders's scholarship on the academic study of Paul. Since Sanders published Paul and Palestinian Judaism (1977) and Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People (1983), it has become...

Calvin takes up two further objections to the biblical doctrine of providence. First, "if nothing happens apart from God's will," does it not follow that "there are in him two contrary wills because by his secret plan he decrees what he has openly forbidden by his law"? (1.18.3). It is true that...

For Calvin, the biblical doctrine of providence is not a matter for idle speculation. On the contrary, "ignorance of providence is the ultimate of all miseries; the highest blessedness lies in the knowledge of it" (1.17.11). In this section, Calvin develops three practical observations concerning...

Rereading Paul Together: Protestant and Catholic Perspectives on Justification By David E. Aune 272 p. Baker (November 2006) Rereading Paul Together (RPT) is a collection of essays originally presented as papers at a conference of Roman Catholic and Lutheran biblical scholars and theologians. The...