Gavin, Author at Truth Unites

(Truly) Great Expectations

The second great novel I’ve listened to on my ipod this spring is Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations. Though I don’t think it matched The Brothers Karamazov‘s psychological and religious depth, I was drawn in by...

June 3, 20101 Comment

A Good Use of One’s Knees

Hegesippus, quoted by Eusebius (Ecclesiastical History, II.xxiii), describing James the Just (the brother of Jesus and early leader of the church in Jerusalem): “He was in the habit of entering the temple alone, and was...

June 1, 2010No Comments

Paul in Acts

Why does the apostle Paul hijack the book of Acts? I remember wondering about this question when studying Acts in seminary, and I was reminded of it in finishing Acts this morning. About halfway through...

May 31, 20101 Comment

Flexibility

This morning I was reading Acts and was struck by Paul’s willingness to purify himself along with Jewish Christians at the suggestion of James and the Jerusalem elders (Acts 21:17-26). It would have been so...

May 29, 20103 Comments

New Study Topics

After seminary I chose Christ’s resurrection (systematic theology), Hebrews (Bible), and Anselm (historical theology) as three study projects for my continued learning. I’ve focused on the resurrection with much of my time this spring, and...

May 26, 20105 Comments

Apostles and Cessationism

One of the arguments used for cessationism is the presence of apostles in spiritual gifts lists in Ephesians 4:11 and I Corinthians 12:28-29. Richard Gaffin, for example, writes: “many continuationists are in fact cessationists, in...

May 23, 201015 Comments

An Absent-minded Scholar

This is truly hilarious: “Occasionally, (Einstein) would take rambling walks on his own, which could be dicey. One day someone called the Institute and asked to speak to a particular dean. When his secretary said...

May 19, 2010No Comments

Simplicity and Trinity

Divine simplicity means that God is not composed of different parts, but utterly whole and indivisible. Its opposite is not “complex” but “composite.” To affirm divine simplicity is to affirm that each of God’s attributes...

May 16, 20108 Comments

How to tell if you are preaching in the power of the Spirit

From Edmund Clowney’s Preaching Christ from All of Scripture (Crossway, 2003), 55: One one occasion I had tea with Martin Lloyd-Jones in Ealing, London, and decided to ask him a question that concerned me. “Dr....

May 16, 20101 Comment