What makes for good preaching? That is a huge question, and not one which I will solve in this post, but I do want to dive into one of the debates that is common when discussing this question and provide a different perspective, which I have come to over the past few months while diving …
We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him …
Continue reading Saved for What? Salvation Through the Eyes of Eastern and Western Christians
Over the past year I have been especially dedicated to the task of learning the differences in the systems known as Calvinism and Arminianism, and in discovering where on that spectrum I fall. This task has prompted me to read not only the works of contemporary authors on the subjects, but also those of Calvin …
Continue reading Augustine on Free Will, Grace, and Perseverance
I began reading Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion (a translation of the 1541 French edition) in order to understand his own perspective on what we know as the Calvinism vs Arminianism debate. I knew that Arminius actually came later, but I wanted to see what undergirded Calvin’s theology and how he reasoned against those …
Continue reading Not Calvin vs. Arminius, but Calvin vs. the Papists
The nation of Israel was in exile.1 They had their temple but were under the sovereignty of a pagan nation that did not know, nor respect, their God, Yahweh. Over 500 years earlier during the reign of the Persian king, Cyrus the Great, the tribes of Benjamin and Judah returned to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple …
Continue reading Restoration for a Nation in Exile and a World without Hope
Jesse Orloff 