by Ty Andor The true Christian church is the body of Jesus Christ (I Corinthians 12; Ephesians 5:29-30; Colossians 1:24). And yet, while it is constituted by the risen Lord, it is more often than not associated with other things. The most common referent of the term ‘church’ is denominational bodies. We know people who [...]

by Donavon Riley At the height of the Osiandrian controversy during the 1530s a contention arose among Lutherans over the proper understanding of justification. This dispute would become a pivotal event for Lutherans in determining the distinctions and similarities between Luther and Lutheran Orthodoxy to the present.  Andreas Osiander, claiming to possess the true teaching [...]

by Donavon Riley Although Andreas Poach and his colleagues were labeled antinomians by many contemporaries they remained adamant in their defense of the law’s proper function, which they believed was in keeping with their professor Martin Luther’s understanding of the law. As students of Luther, Poach and Anton Otto, as well as Otto’s friend Michael [...]

by Steven D. Paulson Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ! Now why would we take a perfectly good Jewish prayer and add Jesus Christ to God? So the fear of God has an end. That is, we have not only God’s law, but his [...]

by Donavon Riley Erasmus of Rotterdam was popularly known as, the “prince of the humanists.” His contemporaries and modern scholars alike have recognized his influence on sixteenth century reformers as well as political and religious leaders of the same era. It is not an exaggeration to state that Erasmus’ contributions to the principles of sixteenth [...]

by Ty Andor One of the most irksome topics in understanding the Christian life has been the notion of divine election, or predestination; the idea that God sat down before all time and made a decision about who would go to heaven and who would go to hell. One begins to wonder how they might [...]

by Donavon Riley   Question: How do the local congregation and its ministers respond to assaults on the Christian Church? Part I | Four Approaches to Consider   1.   Christians, in the United States, live in a dense cultural-theological argument regarding the credibility of the person and agency of God and the incredibility of the Christian “gospel” regarding God.  Who speaks [...]