Spiritual Doesn’t Always Mean Immaterial

 Quite often when we say or hear "spiritual" we might think of something invisible and immaterial (i.e. the 'spiritual life').  However, when it comes to the glory of the New Creation, the Kingdom of God in its fullness, the term "spiritual" doesn't mean immaterial.  I like how Anthony Thiselton comments on Paul's use of pneumatikos (spiritual) …

Goldingay’s Commentary on the Psalms: A Methodological Critique

I've been working with John Goldingay's 3-volume commentary set on the Psalms for a while now.  I haven't read every part (and I'm not overly familiar with Goldingay's other writings, though I know he's some stripe of an open theist, which is a whole other subject), but I have read and utilized it enough to register a …

A Funeral Meditation

While preparing a funeral homily on Revelation 1.18 for a member of the church I serve, I ran across this amazing meditation by James Ramsey (d. 1871). "The Living One has died.  Oh, believers, could we only enter more fully into the meaning and the glorious and necessary results of that death on the cross, we should …

Vos on Abraham’s faith

Geerhardus Vos' description of the faith of the OT patriarchs - particularly Abraham - is most excellent.  I highly recommend (re)reading the entire section, since I only have room to quote a few statements.  See pages 83-87 of Vos' Biblical Theology: Old and New Testaments (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2000). "Faith was in Abraham's life …

Geerhardus Vos on Kingdom

 Is the kingdom of God a process of development or social utopia?  Let's ask Vos: "Side by side with 'the future age,' and characterizing it from a less formal point of view, the phrase 'kingdom of God' designates the consummate state, as it will exist for believers after the judgment.  Jesus, while making the kingdom …