Most seminary students are involved in teaching children in some venue or another. Many are husbands and fathers, and so are responsible for instructing their own children on a regular basis. Others are not yet husbands or fathers but are still involved in teaching...
Ben Edwards talks with John Aloisi about the apologetical value of creeds, confessions, and catechisms.
Ben Edwards talk with Dr. John Aloisi about Spurgeon and his preaching ministry.
This week Ben Edwards and John Aloisi discuss AH Strong and his struggle to reconcile christian theology and modern thought.
In light of Bill Combs’s recent posts on the King James Version, I thought it might be helpful to look briefly at another Bible translation that dominated Western Christendom for even longer than the King James. From time to time, KJV-only advocates have argued for...
Occasionally, some well-meaning Baptists have asserted that belief in both the active and passive obedience of Christ as the ground of our justification is something foreign to Baptist life—perhaps something picked up from the Gospel Coalition, the now inactive T4G,...
In recent months, I’ve written about marriage, parenting, and financial advice “from a dead guy” (i.e., John Chrysostom, c. 347–407). In recounting this advice, I’m not suggesting that Chrysostom was always correct or that his advice should necessarily be followed in...
Have you heard of Gentle Parenting? Phil Cecil talks with Jacob Elwart and John Aloisi about how Gentle Parenting is actually a cruel method of parenting.
What did church leadership look like in the first century? Below are a few observations. In a passage penned in the mid-first century, James addressed the question of what to do when one is facing serious illness. He wrote, “Is anyone among you sick? Let him call the...
In recent months, I’ve written about marriage and parenting advice “from a dead guy” (i.e., John Chrysostom, c. 347–407). In this post, I’m going to note a few comments about wealth and poverty from this same church father. Almost every substantial discussion of John...
A few weeks ago, I wrote a post titled “Parenting Advice from a Dead Guy.” In that post, I introduced Eastern church father John Chrysostom (c. 347–407) and noted some parenting advice found in his book An Address on Vainglory and the Right Way for Parents to Bring up...
Ben Edwards talks with Dr Aloisi about injustices committed by professing Christians.
A couple of weeks ago I suggested that believers would benefit from occasionally reading older books. However, just because a work was written in a previous era does not mean that it’s necessarily worth reading today. In fact, far more old books exist that any one...
I was in the midst of working through some of Tom Nettles’s comments on a chapter of my dissertation when a small box arrived from Founders Press. It was with great anticipation that I paused to open the package. Inside was the newly released Festschrift for Tom...
Eastern church father John Chrysostom (c. 347–407) is best known for his eloquent sermons (more than 700 are extant), wherein he worked verse-by-verse through books of the Bible. In fact, “Chrysostom” is neither a patronymic nor a demonym but rather an appellation...
On October 31, 1517, a monk named Martin Luther (1483–1546) posted a list of topics for academic debate at the local university. With this relatively harmless act, Luther unwittingly launched a movement that would rend the religious fabric of Europe and would...
This past Wednesday, Peter Hubbard, author of Love into Light: The Gospel, the Homosexual, and the Church, delivered the annual William R. Rice lectures at DBTS. In his three lectures, Hubbard talked about how to understand and how to show biblical love to those who...
Happy Reformation Day! In this episode, John Aloisi explains the origin of Reformation Day and the five solas of the Reformation.
Ben Edwards talks with John Aloisi about the origin of baptist churches.
Augustus Hopkins Strongs Attempt to Reconcile Orthodox Theology and Modern Philosophy - AloisiDownload
In the past few weeks, a number of significant new commentaries have been released, and several more are on the immediate horizon. Below are a few of the more interesting additions. Douglas Moo, Romans, 2nd ed., NICNT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2018) Originally...
During his lifetime, C. S. Lewis (1898–1963) received thousands of letters from young fans who had read the Chronicles of Narnia and wanted to connect with the author. One such fan was an American girl named Joan Lancaster, who wrote to Lewis in June of 1956. We don’t...
Did Christ exist before he was conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary? And if he did, in what sense did he exist before his incarnation? In the early fourth century, a church leader named Arius came into conflict with Alexander (bishop in Alexandria, Egypt) over...
Just a few weeks ago, SCS Press released a new book that will likely be of interest to many of our readers. Editors Cory Marsh and James Fazio, both professors at Southern California Seminary, have brought together a group of scholars from a variety of educational...
Just six months before he died, John Wesley (1703–1791) wrote to a preacher named Robert Carr Brackenbury (1752–1818). In that letter Wesley revealed why he believed God had led him establish the Methodists. He wrote, “…with regard to full sanctification. This...
A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post about the myth of unchurched Christians. Unfortunately the reality is that there are a good number of professing Christians who either shy away from church membership or avoid church attendance altogether. The problem of professing...
For some reason it seems to have started earlier than usual this year. Naïvely perhaps, I’ve always thought “Black Friday” referred to the day after Thanksgiving (i.e., Friday). The reality is that we’ve all been receiving emails and seeing print ads about Black...
In an extended discussion of prayer, John Calvin suggested six reasons why believers should pray to God. Those reasons tell us a lot about what Calvin saw prayer accomplishing. However, over and above these six reasons, Calvin saw one overarching reason by Christians...
From time to time, people assert that if a person believes God has predestined all things then that person will necessarily tend to downplay the importance of prayer. But is that really true? Granted, we all pray less than we ought, but does belief in divine...
One of my goals each semester is to try to convince students that writers of the past are not only worth reading but are also much more enjoyable and more valuable to read than they may have imagined. With this in mind, I occasionally reread what C. S. Lewis had to...
If you are interested in Baptist history and are looking for a few good books to read in the new year, you may want to check out Nathan Finn’s annotated list of resources on the Conservative Resurgence within the Southern Baptist Convention. I’d recommend starting...
This week we’re giving away a copy of Kenneth Bailey’s book Paul Through Mediterranean Eyes: Cultural Studies in 1 Corinthians (retail value = $30). In order to be eligible to win this book you need to share this post on Facebook, Twitter, or your blog. Once you’ve...
Despite Bill Clinton’s famous statement that abortion should be “safe, legal, and rare,” today only one of those three adjectives is actually descriptive of abortion in America. Abortion remains legal in all 50 states. However, abortion never has been safe for the...
For hundreds of years the word “book” has suggested a stack of printed pages bound together along one edge and filled with ideas in the form of ink. But this is quickly changing. Today we live in a world where the phrase “reading a book” no longer necessarily invokes...
Despite all the jokes about Wikipedia’s SOPA blackout on Wednesday being hard on college students, the truth is many students do need to improve their online research skills. We live in an amazing day. Within seconds one can use the internet to locate an electronic...
This past April, Andrew Naselli’s new volume, How to Read a Book: Advice for Christian Readers, was released by Canon Press. Over the past few months, six of my kids have read it. Most of them had already read Adler’s book with a similar title.[1] They thought...
Longtime friends of the seminary will fondly recall that Dr. Priest served on the faculty of DBTS from 1988 until his retirement in 2010. While Dr. Priest taught numerous courses in homiletics and Bible exposition, the focus of his teaching and writing ministry was in...
Jacob Arminius and the Doctrine of Original Sin - AloisiDownload
It’s that time of year when complete strangers ask children what they want a dead guy to bring them when he sneaks into their house in the middle of the night. And it’s also a time when Christian parents struggle to help their children answer such people in a way that...
At the beginning of the nineteenth century the country of Burma was almost 100% Buddhist, but such is no longer the case. According to the 2010 edition of Operation World, Burma (now called Myanmar) currently contains a sizeable minority of Christians including about...
A few weeks ago I wrote a post about Patrick (c. 389–c. 461). In response to that post, someone asked several questions about Patrick including whether or not he was Catholic. I offered a brief reply, and a colleague suggested that many people might have similar...
Although St. Patrick’s Day appears on our calendars each year, most modern celebrations of St. Patrick’s Day have little to do with the person behind the holiday. Next week many people will wear a little extra green, some will celebrate their Irish heritage, and more...
“Almighty God, our heavenly Father, seeing that since antiquity it has always pleased you to extend your grace toward your people, as perverse and rebellious as they were; and that you have never ceased to exhort them to repentance, but have always taken them by your...
In the spirit of the season, we’ll be giving away a couple of books to one of our readers very soon. Here are the books: Christians in an Age of Wealth by Craig Blomberg Workbook in Romans by Kenneth Berding If you’d like to be entered in the drawing, just leave a...
In his commentary on the Synoptic Gospels, John Calvin discusses Jesus’ statement that the “Father knows what you need before you ask him” (Matt 6:8). Calvin addresses the question of why believers should pray if God already knows what we need. He suggests the...
The Chief Exercise of Faith - AloisiDownload
A few weeks ago, I mentioned a new little book written by Justin Holcomb, titled Know the Heretics (Zondervan, April 2014). At the same time that book was published, a companion volume titled Know the Creeds and Councils was also released. While the volume I mentioned...
Among the Oxyrhynchus Papyri, there is a rather troubling document dated from the year 1 B.C. It’s a letter written by a husband to his wife. The husband is out of town, and the wife is apparently expecting to deliver a child in the near future. Here’s the text:...
This past week many people on both sides of the abortion issue commemorated the 41st anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision (issued 22 Jan 1973). Since that time, more than 56 million unborn children have been legally killed in the United States....