Reformanda

Christian Disciples
Biblical Theology

Christian Disciples

It is important to pause and observe that nowhere in the New Testament are Christians ever described as disciples of a fellow believer. Throughout the Gospels and Acts, ‘disciple’ is used as a term for believers exclusively with relation to Jesus.

Devoted to The Public Reading of Scripture
Biblical Theology

Devoted to The Public Reading of Scripture

Reformed evangelicals are known as being devoted to Scripture: teaching it, preaching it ... but what about the public reading of it?

Is The Church Still Serious About Heaven?
Biblical Theology

Is The Church Still Serious About Heaven?

What is heaven? Or should we also ask: Where is heaven?; When is heaven?; and - better - Who is heaven?

Reading Psalms: 4. Which King?

As we read Psalms, we've been growing in our understanding of the Messiah: Jesus. In doing so, we’ve jumped quickly from the Psalm to the Psalm-as-about-Jesus. Strictly speaking, however, these Psalms come to us not independent of but through history.

Scott Newling Pastoral

Reading Psalms: 3. Who?

In any text of the Bible one of the foundational questions we have to ask is ‘who is speaking?’ and ‘who is being spoken to?’ Identifying who the pronouns of a text belong to - and where we belong in that, if anywhere at all - is a key aspect to faithful reading.

Scott Newling Pastoral

Reading Psalms: 2. Poets of Rare Words

Hebrew poetry leaves verbs behind. It still has them, but it has them far less frequently than it does in prose. In fact, there was a period of time where some scholars resorted to a statistical analysis of verbs in ratio to nouns to identify poetry vs prose!

Scott Newling Pastoral

Who Is The Holy Spirit?

Many Christians feel the need to promote the Spirit’s personhood in terms of his uniqueness, else we ‘forget’ or ‘neglect’ the Holy Spirit. But the unasked question remains: does the Spirit himself feel the need to define his personhood in this way?

Bored of The Cross?

What distinguishes Jesus’ crucifixion from every other performed by the Romans? Tens of thousands were crucified. And it doesn’t take much for us to remember Spartacus, where there was the mass crucifixion of 6,000 people along the Appian Way.

Scott Newling

Depression, Anxiety, and Work

We have responsibility before God to work; we are not to be lazy. But what does this mean for the person who suffers from depression or anxiety? Because depression and anxiety can outwardly resemble the all characteristics of laziness.

Scott Newling