7 Ways to Work Hard at Rest

4 Problems with Downplaying God’s Wrath

Many people in our culture, both within and without the church, have trouble with the idea of an angry God. Many secular people look at Bible passages where God gets angry and judges people and...

He Lay in the Manger Without Leaving Heaven

The second member of the Trinity is, like the first and third, omnipresent. Wherever you go, he is there. In fact, more than that, the Bible says he sustains all things: he “upholds the universe...

Did Augustine Read Genesis 1 Literally?

Different views on creation in the church today are often summarized in terms of whether one takes the biblical creation story “literally.” Similarly, Augustine’s crowning achievement on the doctrine of creation was, as we have...

The Missing Virtue in the Creation Debates: Augustine on Why Humility Matters

From conversion to death, Augustine was captivated by Genesis 1–3. He kept writing and re-writing commentaries on these chapters, and they pop up his other works as well (many have noticed, often with puzzlement, that...

What We Forget About Creation: How Augustine Expands our Vision

Sometimes Christians treat Genesis 1-3 as a kind of prolegomenon to the biblical narrative. These chapters are important, it is thought, primarily to set the stage for the real business of Christian theology—those issues involved...

When Should Doctrine Divide?

For various reasons I’ve been thinking about how Christians should relate to each other around secondary doctrines. What partnerships and alliances are appropriate among Christians of different denominations, networks, or tribes? What kind of feelings...

Can Creation Debates Find Their Rest in Augustine?

Imagine a young man in his late teen years. He has recently moved to the city to go to school. In the course of his study, he becomes convinced that Genesis 1 is no longer...

The Eternal Shore: Five Things We Forget About Heaven

In 1952, Florence Chadwick tried to swim from Catalina Island to the coast of California. For fifteen hours, she endured choppy waters, possible shark attacks, and extreme fatigue. Then a thick fog set in. She...