The following post is part one of a two-part series. The conclusion will follow on Friday. Over the next several weeks observant Jews will enter one of the busiest and most important religious seasons of the year. Starting at sundown, October 2, and running through...
Church Planting is all the rage right now–the topic seems to be on everyone’s mind, on every conference schedule, and taking hold of many church budgets. All Glory to Christ! I am so thankful for the surge of church planting among evangelicals and the advance of...
In my occasional role as an interim pastor, I’ve been tasked more than once with creating a questionnaire for potential pastoral candidates who have submitted applications for a vacancy in the church. One of the questions that I like to include is this: “What is the...
This Saturday, September 17 from 1:00-4:30 p.m. Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary is hosting an apologetics seminar designed to promote critical thinking about two topics. The seminar is free, and all are welcome. 1) Does God Exist? Jonathan Swift's (pastor of...
In the early 1800s the church in America faced a number of challenges. Intermittent revivals of religion in the previous decades had fueled rapid church growth without a corresponding supply of godly, qualified ministers. The vastly expanding western frontier called...
Should the chief role of a seminary be the training of scholars or pastors? In recent years there has been much said about the Pastor-Scholar, a breed of theological prodigies capable of handling two full time jobs. While some may be able to maintain such balance,...
This morning we welcomed a new crop of seminary students into our halls. Their excitement is contagious, and the faculty is eager to start classes. But as I contemplate the four year path set before these new students, I recognize the importance of a good start....
When I was an associate pastor, I remember “Grandma” Audrey, an eighty-year-old woman, asking me why Jesus required His disciples to keep His true identity a secret (e.g., Mark 8:29-30). I was thankful that she had been reading her Scripture in such a way that...
Six months ago the Lord led my family to make a surprising move. I was teaching at a University in Wisconsin and believed the Lord would leave us there for many years to come. When the Lord led us to seriously consider moving to Detroit, a few things needed to be...
Christians should be personally sympathetic to the plight of those who are truly persecuted and traumatized by the effects of war, especially those who are innocent of and vulnerable to the atrocities of war. Further, Christians should personally extend benevolence,...
Have you ever noticed that the writer of Hebrews never directly quotes from Jesus?[1] Of course, the New Testament epistles do not contain many quotations directly from Jesus. This is understandable in the case of Paul who probably never met the pre-resurrected...
In re-reading The Reformed Pastor by Richard Baxter recently, I was again encouraged to pray for and love those I help shepherd. It is far too easy to have the ministry become more professional than personal. Having a truly biblical, tender love for those in our care...
A little over fifty years ago, Carl Bangs lamented that Jacob Arminius (1559/60–1609) had been consistently misunderstood and misrepresented by both friend and foe alike (Bangs, “Arminius and the Reformation,” Church History 30 [1961]: 155–56). Some thirty years...
Guy Waters has an excellent summary of justification and sanctification over at the Ligonier Blog.
In a few days, we’re going to give away a couple of books to one of our readers. The books we are giving away are Five Views on Biblical Inerrancy and Four Views on the Historical Adam, both in the Counterpoints series published by Zondervan. In order to enter the...
This blog post is fairly ambitious, seeking to answer two questions: How can we prove the existence of universally “received laws of language”? And, assuming they exist, Who gets to decide what those laws are in the absence of an explicit biblical statement of those...
If you notice the header of this blog, you will see a tab marked "Journal," which if selected will take you to the web page for our seminary journal. Detroit Baptist Seminary Journal began in 1996 and is published annually in the fall of the year. At the web page you...
In the West, most Protestants are at least somewhat familiar with Roman Catholicism. Many of us have Roman Catholic friends, neighbors, and even family members. And many believers have been saved out of Roman Catholicism. Much less familiar to most westerners is the...
If you notice the header of this blog, you will see a tab marked "Journal," which if selected will take you to the web page for our seminary journal. Detroit Baptist Seminary Journal began in 1996 and is published annually in the fall of the year. At the web page you...
The Detroit Baptist Seminary Journal has been produced annually by DBTS since 1996. The 2014 edition (vol. 19) was recently published: "'The Chief Exercise of Faith': John Calvin and the Practice of Prayer" by John Aloisi "Spirit-Filling in Ephesians 5:18" by William...
If you notice the header of this blog, you will see a tab marked "Journal," which if selected will take you to the web page for our seminary journal. Detroit Baptist Seminary Journal began in 1996 and is published annually in the fall of the year. At the web page you...
I confess I don’t keep up very well with the evangelical left and its culture-lapping delight in all things morally degenerate. So I’m rather late getting into the discussion of Perry Noble and his ignoble attempt to catch Mark Driscoll's mantle before it reaches the...
The DBTS 2015 summer school schedule is now available. Each class meets Tuesday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 12 noon for two weeks (no classes on Monday). There are three sessions of summer school: May 19-29, June 2-12, and June 16-26. Here are the classes: May 19–29...
From time to time I’ve met professing Christians who for one reason or another claim that they do not need to be part of a local church. In most cases, they seem to believe that because God has placed them in the universal Church, they can worship God just fine apart...
I heard recently of a church seeking a new pastor. Some said, "We want a pastor whose preaching is practical and encouraging." Others said, "We need a doctrinal, expositional ministry." Still others prefer preaching heavy on confrontation. It is easy to identify what...
Most of us are familiar with how 2 Cor 5:7 reads in the KJV, "For we walk by faith, not by sight." If you do a Google search on this verse, you will find explanations of what this means, such as, "the Bible challenges us to 'walk by faith, not by sight,'" or...
In honor of Reformation Day, here are a few resources you might want to check out. Ligonier Ministries has made a number of Reformation-related e-books and audio/video resources available to download for free (until 11:59 pm, Oct 31, 2014). Over on Amazon, several...
Last year we were jolted when the Supreme Court struck down one of the central pillars of the “Defense of Marriage Act,” effectively releasing whatever brake was still restraining same-sex marriage. This week we moved one step closer to trouble for our churches when a...
Last month a new book was released titled A Conservative Christian Declaration. Co-authored by six men (Kevin Bauder, Scott Aniol, David de Bruyn, Mike Riley, Ryan Martin, and Jason Parker) this fairly short volume (92 pp.) is intended to articulate “a fully orbed...
In August 1998, I ordered some of my first seminary textbooks as a student. That particular semester, one item stood out above the rest. Philip Schaff’s 8-volume History of the Christian Church stood out primarily due to its price. At the time Schaff retailed for...
Michigan Cherry Coffee Sure, you can order it online. But only Michigan coffeehouses serve freshly brewed coffee made from cherries grown just a few hours to our north. If you like coffee but haven’t tried Michigan Cherry coffee, you need to. And if you don’t like...
Eusebius of Caesarea (c. 260–c. 340) is generally considered the church’s first real historian. Although he provides invaluable insight into the history and workings of the early church, Eusebius is often criticized for his selective record and especially for his...
Over the past month or two, I’ve put forward a few suggested reading lists in the field of church history. These lists have included surveys of church history, books on the history of Christian doctrine, books that discuss church history in specific areas of the...
One of the best-known lines from St. Paul is found at the beginning of his letter to the Philippians where he says, “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain” (1:21). I think this was my life verse for at least a few years. In fact, I’m pretty sure I put the...
In recent weeks, I’ve posted a few suggested reading lists in the field of church history. These lists have included broad overviews of church history, books on the history of Christian doctrine, and books that discuss church history in specific areas of the world. In...
Over the past few weeks, I’ve posted a couple of suggested reading lists. These lists have included broad overviews of church history and books on the history of Christian doctrine. In this post, I’m going to recommend a number of books that focus on the history of...
I recently had a student ask what books pastors and future pastors should read in order to become familiar with the church’s past. I’d like to answer that question by suggesting a short list of books over a couple of blog posts. The nature of church history is such...
I heard it on the radio again the other day—a slick sounding ad depicting happy sounding people talking about how much fun it is to win “the big one.” It was an ad for the Michigan Lottery, and it left one with the impression that most people who play the lottery...
(A Guest Post by David Doran, Jr.) Every mother, pastor, roofer, and sanitation engineer in the Western world has felt the wrath of life’s relentless assault of tasks-to-be-done. You’re probably calling them tasks-to-survive by now. Western culture is drunk on going...
Within American history the names of Benedict Arnold, Aaron Burr, and the Rosenbergs live on in infamy. These are people who rather notoriously tried to undermine the well-being of our nation for some kind of personal profit. We look back on such individuals with a...
The worldwide web is a staging area for mobs. It offers us sound definitions of and warnings about mobs (Wikipedia calls them “individuals in a group to acting together without planned direction…in schools, demonstrations, riots, and general strikes, sporting events,...
Just a reminder that the Rice Lectures are now just two weeks away on Wednesday, March 19. Pastor Peter Hubbard, who is the teaching pastor at North Hills Community Church in Taylors, SC, will be presenting three lectures based on his new book Love Into Light: The...
If you have spent time counseling men in the areas of purity and pornography, you have probably, like me, struggled to find a resource that is biblical, straightforward, pastoral, and pure itself. In my opinion, Heath Lambert has written such a book, titled Finally...
Students in my Medieval Church History class recently read Augustine’s book, On Christian Teaching. As I was working my way back through this little volume, I was struck by a statement Augustine (354-430) makes which seems to have application to those who would be...
Each year DBTS hosts the William R. Rice Lecture Series, named for the Seminary's founder and first president. We are pleased to announce that the speaker for this year's event on March 19, 2014, will be Pastor Peter Hubbard, who is the teaching pastor at North Hills...
The web site for Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary has been given a refresh. We hope you like it. Just click the Seminary tab at the top of this page to check it out. The Seminary publishes an annual scholarly journal, Detroit Baptist Seminary Journal. If you click...
Along with several million others, I watched the widely publicized debate between Bill Nye and Ken Ham this past Tuesday evening. Since that time, many people on both sides of the origins issue have produced videos, articles, and blog posts discussing the debate. Here...
American culture is fascinated with celebrities. American evangelicalism, as a subset of American culture, is too. For some reason, there remains a persistent belief that the public testimony of a well known athlete or entertainer will be more effective than that of a...
One of the more surprising sources of parental advice that I have received came to me a few years ago in the form of a recorded lecture by Greg Bahnsen—a lecture in which he detailed the process of “becoming a philosopher.” Without explaining the entire discussion,...