We often sing in our church a song “Prepare the way of the Lord.” It’s from Isaiah and others, it’s from Mark 1:3. It’s Advent-ish, it’s Epiphany-ish. It’s about being prepared for Christ’s arrival, which is annually re-lived in the Christian calendar. It’s also how Francis Watson discusses the Second Gospel in his book The Fourfold Gospel. There was a day when the raging discussion was the chronological order of the Gospels: Which was written first? Watson, I’m glad to say,... Read more

New Anglican Studies Program at Northern Seminary Lead the Church, Engage the World with an Anglican Ethos Northern Seminary’s new Anglican Studies Program (with certificate and degree options) begins Spring 2018, through a partnership with The Telos Collective, an initiative of The Anglican Church in North America (ACNA). The Anglican Studies Program is designed to serve the academic and formational requirements of students preparing for Anglican ministry, lay and especially ordained. In this program, students will engage the Anglican history,... Read more

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It has become common to study the science of religion and as a result the science of theology. Religious practice is a social construct amenable to study in the context of sociology, anthropology, and evolutionary psychology. Presumably religion exists because it has some survival benefit for the human race. Religion/theology is a valid subject for scientific study, but to leave it at this misses a very important element of theology, whether Christian or not. Ernest Rutherford (who discovered the “nucleus”... Read more

John Walton’s done it again, a new “lost world” book. This one has a new advantage: he wrote it with Tremper Longman, a fellow Old Testament scholar. The method of John Walton is to break it all down into theses so I will give Tremper’s and John’s theses today. You can read the theses below and make sense of the whole book and the larger argument. Details and support for each thesis can be found in each of the short... Read more

Would you like to deepen your ability to teach, preach, and write for your church context? Do you have a desire to take your church into the rich perspective of the New Testament? Join me and my new colleague, Pastor Professor Dennis Edwards, for this innovative master’s degree in contextual and pastoral theology and exegesis. Dennis is the author of a commentary on 1 Peter. This Fall Dennis Edwards and I are launching our third innovative Master of Arts in New Testament... Read more

From Ross Douthat, who has written a book on Pope Francis, To Change the Church, that will surely be a benchmark for many: The conversation has become predictable. A friendly acquaintance — a neighbor, a fellow parent, our real estate agent — asks about my work. I say I’ve been writing a book about the pope, and the acquaintance smiles and nods and says “Isn’t he so wonderful?” or, “That must be an inspiring thing,” or, “I have a friend who would... Read more

It’s Lent but our text in 1 Clement turns us toward Easter, so during Lent let us pause to consider how we might think and see resurrection as the end of our Lenten season. Our series on the Friday With Our Fathers (FWOF) uses for its text Michael Holmes, The Apostolic Fathers. God, Clement teaches the divided Christians in Corinth, reveals resurrection in a variety of ways, and it is ours to have eyes to see. One can say that... Read more

By Geoff Holsclaw: a professor of theology at Northern Seminary and pastor at Life on the Vine Christian Church. If you want to expand your understanding of Jesus’s death, Geoff is offering this free mini-course on The 3 Forgotten Reasons for Jesus’ Death. Is Jesus’s death on the cross a substitution for our death? And if so, is it a penal substitution, where Jesus takes the punishment demanded by God? These are the kinds of issues at stake when we think of... Read more

I am so excited to be able (finally) to announce this great great news, a colleague in the New Testament department at Northern! Lisle, Ill.— March 18, 2018 — As part of Northern Seminary’s continuing expansion, veteran pastor/author/church planter Rev. Dr. Dennis R. Edwards will join the faculty in Fall 2018 as Associate Professor of New Testament. Dennis is a prominent Evangelical Covenant pastor, most recently serving in Minneapolis. A native of Queens, New York, he has pastored in major metro... Read more