Mark Horne

Remembering the Christian Departed
by N. T. Wright
(Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse Publishing, 2003)
96 pages
$10.00
Bishop Nicholas Thomas Wright of Durham has a reputation as a first-rate Evangelical apologist (in the wider British sense of the word, “Evangelical”), historian, and Bible scholar, whose work on Jesus and Paul has earned a wide hearing. However, this short work shows him [...]

Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them to present himself before the Lord. And the Lord said to Satan, “From where have you come?”
Satan answered the Lord and said, “From going to and fro on the [...]

This is not meant to exclude any other nutshell answers (if they’re accurate), but I have one that I think goes a long way to explaining what is happening.
B. B. Warfield once described Aurelius Augustine, Bishop of Hippo as a man whose Ecclesiology and Soteriology were in conflict. And he [...]

There is a “golden age” before the Church – at least an age relatively golden gradually ripening to higher and higher glories as the Church more and more conquers the world and all the evil of [...]

It is the great conception which John is reflecting in the phrase, “he is the propitiation for our sins, and [...]

Following up on this post.
According to “the judgment of charity” God had rescued the Israelites from Egypt and was going to take them to the promised Land because he loved them and loved the patriarchs.
In the Bible, rejecting “the judgment of charity” and accusing God of taking them from Egypt in order to kill them [...]

Sure it is true.  It is true in the same way it is true that God brought some people out of Egypt planning to kill them in the wilderness.
The people who doubted God’s faithfulness and disbelieved his good will toward them died in the wilderness.
So who gets baptized but is not finally saved?
Does baptism mean [...]

“God says, ‘I forgive you,’ but I’m not sure he really means it, so I have to find some ground of certainty more certain than the promises of God.  That is unbelief.”

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I’ve never presented this sermon to an actual audience. It was a class assignment. I modified it slightly so it would read more naturally as a blog entry. In keeping with the assignment, I ended with a “sinner’s prayer,” though that seems sort of hokey and unreal to me. But maybe I’m wrong.
In a letter [...]

I haven’t been buying many books lately.  Mainly because I’m trying not to buy anything if I can help it.
But today is different.  For reasons I won’t go into today would be a really good day to buy a book by Peter Leithart.
And there are many to choose from.  Dr. Peter Leithart has been producing [...]

Against Christianity is a fascinating book. And it goes well with a cigar. There are several reason for this. Cigars function well in two settings: public and private. In public they are used as a social tool for the golf course, after dinner with friends, discussing philosophy or theology with your buddies and so forth. [...]

One of the advantages in acknowledging that God’s sovereignty in saving sinners is a subset of his sovereignty in everything that happens, is that one does not have to be ruled by false dilemmas.
For example, if a wife and husband are in marital counseling, one of the points a pastor can communicate to the couple [...]

In baptism itself we are neither promising God that we will do something, nor are we asking God to do something, we are watching him do something.
via On Baptism « Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam.

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It is not in the best interests of the doctrine involved to substitute the designation, “The Security of the Believer,” not because the latter is wrong in itself but because the other formula is much more carefully and inclusively framed. . . . It is not true that the believer is secure however much he [...]

Today, for some reason, I’m remembering I jotted off back in the nineties when I was in seminary.  It was an attempt at a simple statement of what the Westminster Confession and Catechisms teach about sacraments, along with an explanation I thought would help persuade people that it took the right approach.  At some point [...]

It is the duty of all then, to consider and lay to heart the evil that is comprehended in the actual disunion and division, which now prevail in the Catholic Church. I say in the Catholic Church; because the one Spirit of Christ is supposed to pervade the whole body, notwithstanding this vast defect, binding [...]

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us [...]

The liberty of the sect consists at last, in thinking its particular notions, shouting its shibboleths and passwords, dancing its religious hornpipes, and reading the Bible only through its theological goggles. These restrictions, at the same time, are so many wires, that lead back at last into the hands of a few leading spirits, enabling [...]

And naturally we get into an argument.  As we’re going along I look out the window and see some white rocks lying on the hillside in a pattern that looks like it says,
WELCOME TO KANSAS
“I wonder who put those rocks there.” I say.  “Do you think the state did it or someone who happens to [...]

Is not the cup of blessing which we bless a sharing in the blood of Christ? Is not the loaf of bread which we break a sharing in the body of Christ? Since there is one loaf, we who are many are one body; for we all partake of the one loaf
For even as the [...]