Vittore Carpaccio, "Saint Augustine in His Study," 1507. A biblical reconsideration of the views of Augustine and Calvin By Rod Benson I’ve been reading Rutger Bregman’s 2019 New York Times bestseller, Humankind: A Hopeful History, and it has me questioning my views about human nature and Christian anthropology. Of course, this is a good thing because engagement …
Catholic and Protestant approaches to ethics
The question of how Christians ought to live has occupied believers since the earliest days of the church. The New Testament repeatedly links faith in Jesus Christ with transformed patterns of life, calling followers of the way of Jesus to love God, love their neighbours, pursue holiness, embody the character of Christ, and seek to …
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Knowing a majestic God
This is the last of five sermons on selected Old Testament psalms, focusing on the nature and character of God, what it means to know God, and how that knowledge of God draws responses from our hearts and minds, changing our attitudes and actions. Reflecting on Psalm 15, we saw that the God we have …
Two ways to live
What is your experience of the Psalms in the Hebrew Bible? Take a moment to reflect on the following: Which psalms most readily come to mind? What memories do you associate with those psalms? What people and places do you think of when you hear a psalm? What Christian hymns and songs extend the reach …
The Doctrine of Election
John Calvin, The Doctrine of Election (trans. from the French by Robert White; Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 2022). 224pp + indexes. ISBN 9781800402652 Reviewed by Dr Rod Benson The biblical doctrine of election is fraught with controversy. The reasons for this are not hard to discover: there is, firstly, an apparent tension between determinism …
All Told 