Triablogue

I Agree With The Earliest Christians About The Perpetual Virginity Of Mary

2026-04-07T04:56:00.004-04:00

When it comes to the perpetual virginity of Mary, do you agree with the Catholic view or with the view of Protestant reformers Martin Luther, Ulrich Zwingli, and John Wesley?
— Michael Knowles (@michaeljknowles) March 28, 2026

I agree with Matthew, Mark, Hegesippus, Irenaeus, and other early Christians who rejected the perpetual virginity of Mary. Much of the Biblical evidence against her perpetual virginity rarely gets discussed, such as what I address here and here. There were many Christians in early church history who didn't believe that Mary was a perpetual virgin, far more than just Tertullian and Helvidius. You can access an archive of our posts on the perpetual virginity of Mary here. Keep clicking Older Posts in the lower right to see more.

How Bart Ehrman Misframes Discussions Of Jesus' Resurrection

2026-04-05T06:52:00.003-04:00

He was recently on Ross Douthat's Interesting Times podcast, and there was some discussion of the historicity of the gospels, the resurrection, and other issues related to Easter. There are too many problems with Ehrman's claims for me to address all of them here, but I want to talk about some of them.

He dates the gospels to the 70s and later and refers to how accounts of Jesus circulated orally prior to that time. But he and many other scholars have argued that the gospels made use of earlier sources, like Q, and those sources include written ones. The opening of Luke refers to "many" earlier sources. Since it's less common for many people to contribute to one account than for many people to each compose an account of his own, it's unlikely that Luke is thinking of one account produced by many people. Rather, he's probably thinking of many accounts produced by the many individuals he refers to. And there's widespread agreement that Luke used Mark as a source, and there's no early report of many people being involved in the composition of Mark. If Mark was among Luke's sources, then there apparently wasn't just one account involved. That's further reason to think Luke had many accounts and many individuals in mind, not just one account. Luke compares his document to the efforts of those earlier sources, and that comparison makes more sense if at least a portion of those sources, probably a majority or all of them, were in written form. Furthermore, the nature of the subject matter, "the things accomplished among us" (Luke 1:1), is more likely to be written than oral. It's a large and complicated topic, as the gospel of Luke illustrates, something more suited for writing than oral communication. Even if some of the many accounts Luke refers to were oral, it's likely that most were written. And even if Luke used both Mark and Matthew, it's unlikely that two documents would motivate Luke to refer to "many". There probably were some written sources other than Mark and Matthew that Luke had in mind. And the widespread use of writing prior to the 70s among Christians, as we see reflected in Paul's letters, adds to the probability that material like we have in the gospels was written down earlier than the timeframe in which Ehrman places the gospels. For more about the presence of written sources in the earliest decades of Christianity, including documents no longer extant, see here.

In addition to the evidence for written material before the 70s, Christianity has traditionally appealed to more than the normal means of preserving information (e.g., John 14:26). Ehrman doesn't accept that traditional Christian view, but arguments have been offered for it, and his comments on Douthat's program don't interact with those arguments or even acknowledge that Christians have maintained that more than the normal means of preserving information is involved in the accuracy of the gospels and other early Christian sources. So, Ehrman is wrong about the normal means, and he doesn't even acknowledge or argue against the other means of accurately preserving information.

He's also wrong about the dating of the gospels. In an attempt to explain why Acts ends where it does, he brings up the theme of how unstoppable Christianity and Paul are in Acts. Ehrman comments, "this is a movement that cannot be stopped. Paul in particular cannot be stopped." Allegedly, ending Acts with Paul continuing to advance Christianity makes sense in light of that theme, even if the book was written after Paul's death. Read the opening of the gospel of Luke. Read the opening of Acts. There's nothing there about the unstoppable nature of Christianity or Paul. We don't hear anything about Paul in the third gospel, and he doesn't appear in Acts until several chapters into the book. When the author tells us what he's addressing in his two-volume work, he refers to "the things accomplished among us" (Luke 1:1) and "all that Jesus began to do and teach" (Acts 1:1). There's an implication that Acts would address what Jesus went on to do and teach, including through the apostles and the church. So, the author is writing about the history of the Christian movement. The best explanation for why he ends Acts where he does is that those were the latest significant events as of the time of his writing. Acts probably was completed in the early to mid 60s. The earliest external evidence addressing the dating of the two-volume work is 1 Timothy 5:18, which has the gospel of Luke circulating while Paul is still alive. And 1 Timothy does so regardless of what view you hold of the authorship of the document. Thus, the explanation of the scope of the two-volume work offered at the beginning of the third gospel, the explanation of the scope of Acts offered at the beginning of the document, and the earliest external evidence all favor a date for Luke/Acts during Paul's lifetime. Ehrman ignores and contradicts all three of those lines of evidence and proposes a reason for Acts' ending that the author never states, that can't be verified, and that poorly explains how Acts ends.

Even if the author had wanted to focus on the unstoppable nature of Christianity or Paul's efforts in particular, he could have narrated Christianity's ongoing growth throughout the world after Jerusalem and the temple were destroyed, the apostle John's ongoing work long after Paul died, Paul's influence after his death (much as Jesus continued to be influential after his death), etc. To make the unstoppable nature of Christianity or Paul's advancement of Christianity as of the timeframe in which Paul was imprisoned in Acts 28 the focus - even though the descriptions of the scope of Luke's work in the opening of each document make no mention of those themes - doesn't make sense. Luke's work isn't primarily about that unstoppable nature Ehrman appeals to, and both Christianity and Paul's advancement of it continued beyond his imprisonment in Acts 28. If you want to focus on the unstoppable nature of Paul, why not end with him getting out of prison and continuing his work with more freedom, his martyrdom and his presence in heaven as he continues to influence the world to advance Christianity after his death, etc.? Ehrman is turning from the purpose of Luke/Acts described in Luke 1:1-4 and Acts 1:1, redirecting our attention to the lesser theme of the unstoppability of Christianity, narrowing that down further to the unstoppability of Paul's efforts to advance Christianity in particular, then narrowing that further to Paul's unstoppability up to the time of the Acts 28 imprisonment, but not after. That's pretty ad hoc. By the time you go down the path of all of Ehrman's whittling down of the scope of Luke's work, you're a long way from what Luke tells us he's going to do. Ehrman is disregarding what the author of Luke/Acts tells us about the scope of his work and substituting a different scope that's unverifiable and poorly explains why Acts ends where it does. For further evidence of the earliness of Luke/Acts, go here.

Ehrman tells us that the gospels don't claim to be written by eyewitnesses, and he objects to the third-person language of the gospels, which he cites as evidence against eyewitness authorship. Christians only claim that two of the gospels were written by eyewitnesses, so those are the only two that are relevant here.

And John 19:35 and 21:24 are most naturally taken as references to the author as an eyewitness. For more about the subject, see here. The references to presently testifying in both passages make the most sense if the author is the one doing the testifying. It's simpler to think of one source being involved instead of having some second source testifying independently at the same time that the author is testifying by writing the document. And both passages allude to what Jesus said about his eyewitness disciples in John 14-16, meaning that the author is suggesting that his writing of the fourth gospel is a fulfillment of what Jesus predicted. Therefore, he's claiming to be one of those disciples. For more about that John 14-16 material, see my post here. John 21:24 refers to the Beloved Disciple as the author of the gospel. Likewise, 1 John, which has language and themes highly similar to those of the fourth gospel and likely comes from the same author, identifies the author in question as an eyewitness of Jesus (1:1-3). For more about that evidence from 1 John, see here.

And the fourth gospel illustrates the weakness of Ehrman's objection to third-person language. The document identifies the author as the Beloved Disciple, as discussed above, but also refers to "we" (21:24) and follows it with "I" (21:25). Similarly, Paul sometimes refers to himself in the third person in his letters (e.g., 2 Corinthians 12:2-5). The fact that the first and fourth gospels were so widely attributed to apostles so early on provides further evidence that there was a widespread recognition at the time that an author could write of himself in the third person. For a discussion of the many lines of evidence that the first gospel was written by Matthew, see here.

Luke wasn't an eyewitness of Jesus, but he was an eyewitness of Paul and some of Paul's miracles. Those miracles are evidence for a Christian view of Jesus and his resurrection. Luke refers to himself as an eyewitness in the "we" passages in Acts (16:10, etc.). For a discussion of those passages and the evidence for a traditional Christian understanding of them, go here.

Though Ehrman could appeal to alternative interpretations of John 19:35, 21:24, 1 John 1:1-3, and the "we" material in Acts, he has to take every one of those passages in a less natural way in order to do so. And I've argued for a traditional reading of those passages, like in the posts linked above.

His claim that "there's no way for us to establish it [a miracle] historically" and "other explanations are always far more likely" than a miraculous explanation depends on certain assumptions he hasn't adequately argued for and other factors involved that he hasn't addressed. If you're examining, say, a claim that a rich man gave his only child a car on his sixteenth birthday, you can't just ask how often fathers give their children cars, bring up the fact that no car was given for the son's previous birthdays, etc. You have to also take into account the fact that the father is rich, which puts him in a different category than the average father, the fact that a car is far more appropriate for a sixteenth birthday than for earlier ones, and so on. What Ehrman does in discussions like these is single out factors that he thinks are favorable to the prior probability he wants to assign to the resurrection while ignoring or underestimating factors that go the other way. Every type of historical event has a first of its kind at some point. There's a first time you hear of a volcano erupting, a first time you hear about airplanes, etc. There's no overwhelming improbability that each event has to overcome the first time you hear of it. Far more than frequency is involved in determining a prior probability, so you can't conclude that something is highly unlikely just because it's unprecedented or rare. In the context of Jesus' resurrection, we take into account Jesus' being a prominent religious leader, his identity claims, the evidence for miracles other than the resurrection that are affiliated with him, the fact that whether God raised somebody from the dead is a different issue than how often resurrections naturally occur, and so forth. For example, I've argued for Jesus' supernatural fulfillment of prophecy, such as Isaiah 9:1-7, the Servant Songs in Isaiah, and Psalm 22. Christians have given many reasons, like what I've just outlined, for thinking that the prior probability of a resurrection of Jesus is much higher than the prior probability of a resurrection of the average person, the average religious leader, or some such thing. Ehrman could bring up other factors to strengthen his own side, such as the problem of evil, which he discussed with Douthat. But Christians have provided answers for the problem of evil, and it's about the nature of one of the beings powerful enough to produce something like a resurrection, not the existence of such a being. And what else would Ehrman appeal to? Nothing Ehrman has brought up, in his discussion with Douthat or anywhere else I'm aware of, justifies the degree of prior improbability he assigns to the resurrection. And the sort of evidence we have for Jesus' resurrection is enough to outweigh even a high prior improbability.

Another problem is that people like Ehrman apply too little scrutiny to their own alternatives to the resurrection claim. There's going to be an extremely high improbability to any skeptical hypothesis that combines skeptical explanations of at least a few (probably more) former opponents of Christianity claiming to have seen the risen Jesus, Peter's having had at least a few different resurrection experiences, a dismissal of the empty tomb reports, etc. It's one thing to observe that people sometimes hallucinate, under particular circumstances (when under the effects of certain drugs, under some forms of sleep deprivation, etc.). It's something else to claim that a large percentage of people within a particular context, a much higher percentage than there normally would be, were all hallucinating around the same time and in the same way while not under the conditions that normally produce a hallucination. When Ehrman strings together such a large number of such scenarios, that involves an extremely high improbability, one much higher than any prior improbability he's demonstrated for a resurrection.

Evidence That The Thief On The Cross Is Normal, Not An Exception To The Rule

2026-04-02T05:22:00.001-04:00

One of the subjects that sometimes comes up in the context of Good Friday is the thief on the cross. Advocates of baptismal regeneration and other forms of justification through works often dismiss the thief as a soteriological exception to the rule.

There aren't any Biblical examples of a person being justified at the time of baptism. But there are many examples of people being justified without having ever been baptized or at the time of prebaptismal faith. See my post here on the double healing passages, for example. See here on the evidence from Acts. Here's a post arguing that Cornelius in Acts 10, like the thief on the cross, is normal rather than an exception. And here's a discussion of how the Galatians were justified the same way Cornelius was. There are many other such posts in our archives, including ones that address other passages, not just the ones mentioned above. If the thief on the cross is an exception to the rule, why is his scenario repeated so often, before his time and afterward, by such a large number and variety of individuals and across such a large number and variety of contexts?

There's further evidence for the normativity of the thief in the language and themes of the passage. The more the account about the thief resembles the other relevant passages, the more difficult it is to dismiss it as exceptional. You could still dismiss the thief as an exception to the rule, despite how similar he is to the rule, but what we should be concerned about is the best explanation of the passage, not just a possible explanation.

Like others in the gospels, such as in the double healing passages cited above, the thief initiates an exchange with Jesus that acknowledges him as a superior (e.g., the behavior of the woman in Luke 7:37-38, "Master" in 17:13, "God" in 18:13, "Lord" in 19:8, the thief's comments in 23:41-42) and seeks something from him. And the thief asks for something soteriological in particular, as some of the others who approached Jesus did. Shortly before the account about the thief, Luke narrates Jesus' comments about the tax collector in 18:9-14 and an interaction with Zaccheus in 19:1-10. Both passages are soteriological (18:14, 19:9), like the passage about the thief.

The "today" in "today you shall be with me in Paradise" (Luke 23:43) should sound familiar. Jesus had likewise referred to "today" in response to Zaccheus (19:9), and the reference to how the tax collector in the previous chapter "went to his house justified" is likewise meant to highlight the immediacy of his justification. And Jesus tells others that their faith has already saved them (7:50, 17:19). There's a consistent theme of immediacy. I'm focused on Luke's gospel, since that's where the thief account is found, but keep in mind that there are similar passages in the other gospels and elsewhere in the New Testament, as discussed in the double healing post linked earlier.

Jesus' emphasis on immediacy, as reflected in his use of the word "today" in the thief passage and elsewhere, is found in other early Christian sources as well. As I've discussed in another post, Paul addresses the theme of immediacy with the same sort of appeal to the current day that we see in Luke's gospel in 2 Corinthians 6:2 ("the day"), and he even replaces "the day" with "now" to put further emphasis on the immediacy of justification. In Romans 10:8-10, he refers to the immediacy of our access to the means of receiving justification (faith in the heart). Both the chronological immediacy of 2 Corinthians 6 (also referred to by Jesus) and the immediacy of access referred to in Romans 10 make the most sense under justification through faith alone. Adding baptism or any other work (or sacrament or whatever else you want to call it) undermines the immediacy Jesus and Paul appealed to.

The account of the thief on the cross provides further evidence for the immediacy of justification, as highlighted by the "today" language, has other characteristics found in other passages in which justification through faith alone occurs, and gives us another example of somebody justified apart from baptism and other works. There are multiple ways in which the thief account fits into a larger pattern that we see elsewhere in the gospels, Acts, and other places in the New Testament. The thief isn't an exception to the rule. He's another illustration of the rule.

He Will Never Fail To Succor His People

2026-03-31T04:47:00.003-04:00

Writing of the Garden of Gethsemane, Matthew tells us that Jesus took some of his disciples with him, but "went a little beyond them, and fell on his face" (Matthew 26:39). That's a useful metaphor of how we can share in Jesus' suffering in some ways, but not fully, how there are significant differences between our suffering and his.

An aspect of his substitutionary work on our behalf that doesn't get as much attention as it should is his taking upon himself sins we aren't aware of or have underestimated or misjudged in some other way. Job offered sacrifices for the potential sins of his children, sins he may have been unaware of (Job 1:5). Leviticus makes provision for sins of ignorance (5:17). "Who can discern his errors? Acquit me of hidden faults." (Psalm 19:12) The New Testament refers to sins committed in ignorance (Luke 12:48, Acts 2:36-38, 3:17-19, 1 Timothy 1:13-15, Hebrews 9:7). Your initial knowledge of a sin committed can be lost later. You can waver about whether you've sinned in a particular situation. Even if you reach a conclusion without wavering, there can be significant doubt about that conclusion. Paul wrote, "I am conscious of nothing against myself, yet I am not by this acquitted; but the one who examines me is the Lord." (1 Corinthians 4:4) The Lord "who loved me and gave himself up for me" (Galatians 2:20), who "will bring me safely to his heavenly kingdom" (2 Timothy 4:18). If we had to be aware of all of our sins and repent of each one by name, "who could stand?" (Psalm 130:3)

Some decisions in life are difficult. There are occasions when we don't know whether we've sinned. A hard choice has to be made, one we may agonize over, even for years or decades. Think of the value of having a Savior who bore our griefs and carried our sorrows (Isaiah 53:4). "The chastening for our well-being fell upon him, and by his scourging we are healed." (verse 5) Our iniquity fell on him (verse 6). He knows more about our sins than we do. The Christian who agonizes over whether he sinned in a particular context doesn't have to agonize over whether any sin he committed was born by Christ. His soul was "deeply grieved, to the point of death", but he told his sinful disciples to "remain here and keep watch with me" (Matthew 26:38).

He knows our sins better than we do, and he knows the remainder of our lives better than we do, our sorrows, our motives that have been misjudged by other people, and everything else. "Despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief" (Isaiah 53:3), including the grief of public shame and false suspicions and false accusations. "Come to me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest." (Matthew 11:28)

When I address subjects like these, I'm concerned about addressing them inadequately. How could my comments not be inadequate, given the nature of what's involved? But these subjects are worth discussing, even in an imperfect way.

"Since it would not be possible for any believer, however experienced, to know for himself all that our Lord endured in the place of the olive-press, when he was crushed beneath the upper and the nether mill-stone of mental suffering and hellish malice, it is clearly far beyond the preacher's capacity to set it forth to you. Jesus himself must give you access to the wonders of Gethsemane…Oh! dear friends, when the immaculate Lamb of God found himself in the place of the guilty, when he could not repudiate that place because he had voluntarily accepted it in order to save his chosen, what must his soul have felt, how must his perfect nature have been shocked at such close association with iniquity? We believe that at this time, our Lord had a very clear view of all the shame and suffering of his crucifixion. The agony was but one of the first drops of the tremendous shower which discharged itself upon his head. He foresaw the speedy coming of the traitor-disciple, the seizure by the officers, the mock-trials before the Sanhedrin, and Pilate, and Herod, the scourging and buffeting, the crown of thorns, the shame, the spitting….We have glanced at the fountains of the great deep which were broken up when the floods of grief deluged the Redeemer's soul. Brethren, this one lesson ere we pass from the contemplation. 'We have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.' [Hebrews 4:15-16] Let us reflect that no suffering can be unknown to him. We do but run with footmen—he had to contend with horsemen; we do but wade up to our ankles in shallow streams of sorrow—he had to buffet with the swellings of Jordan. He will never fail to succor his people" (Charles Spurgeon)

You Have To Move From Theory To Fact

2026-03-29T07:02:00.003-04:00

Critics of religion and the paranormal are often overly focused on hypotheticals. Too much time in the abstract, too little time in the concrete. They claim a certain prior improbability for miracles, go on and on about how unreliable human memory supposedly is, the problem of bias, the potential for hallucinations, how an overactive imagination often misleads people, etc. That sort of consideration is valid up to a point. But there's also a point where it becomes suspicious, if the facts involved in a particular situation aren't being addressed adequately.

One area where I've seen this sort of problem come up over and over again is how people assess the Enfield Poltergeist. I've done a lot of work on the case, and I often follow YouTube videos and threads on the subject, read news articles about it and the comments made below the articles, etc. It's astonishing how often people will move from some generalization - about human biases, the potential for people to hallucinate, or whatever else - to a conclusion about the case without doing much, if anything, to interact with the relevant facts involved in the Enfield case in particular.

Observing that people sometimes hallucinate is one thing. Arguing that a hallucination is the best explanation of a certain set of circumstances is something else. Many people do the former as a substitute for doing the latter.

Or they'll cite a particular fact, such as something in a photograph, and reach a conclusion based on that fact without addressing other relevant facts involved, such as certain aspects of the larger context surrounding the photo. Applying abstract observations to a particular fact is better than making no application to any facts. But if there are other facts that also need to be addressed, then you need to address those as well.

Something scenarios like these have in common is that people seem to be looking for shortcuts. They don't want to spend much time or other resources on something, so they look for a quick and easy way to assess it. That can have some merit to one degree or another, depending on the circumstances, but there are dangers that go along with it. Shortcuts sometimes do more harm than good. You have to be careful in how you handle them.

What you often find with critics of something like the gospels or a paranormal case is that they're big on theory and small on facts. Sometimes, the historical record has put them in a situation in which they'd prefer to be focused on something other than that record. Or, as you often see in contexts like YouTube threads and comments sections below news articles, people are just gullibly skeptical (gullibility being something that can go in more than one direction), lazy, or misbehaving for whatever other reason. Whatever their motivations, they need to address both theory and fact, not just one or the other.

Where should a new Christian start reading systematic theology?

2026-03-27T08:09:00.029-04:00

Someone asked the above question. Here's my reply to him, though I've added a bit more than was in my original reply. And my reply reflects my Reformed commitments, though of course there are many other good resources for evangelicals in general (e.g. Millard Erickson, Alister McGrath, Norm Geisler).

My general advice is:

1. Discipleship. This is absolutely foundational. The priority or emphasis (especially for new Christians) should be discipleship over systematic theology as such. Specifically, the priority or emphasis should be learning how to read and study the Bible, how to pray, how to worship, how to serve, how to give, how to evangelize, how to make disciples. In essence, learning how to love the Lord and how to love others.

For example, I became a Christian in college, like many others. I was in part taught and discipled by InterVarsity. One thing we learned was something called manuscript Bible study. Basically an entire book of the Bible (or a section of a long book) was printed off for us. All headings, chapter and verse numbers, and pretty much everything else except the biblical text itself were removed. We would go through the text during our group Bible studies. We'd begin by noticing the author and the audience addressed. We'd try and place section breaks where we thought they might go. We'd highlight and/or underline key terms that seemed significant - people, places, events, repeated words, and so on. After doing this on our own for a few minutes or so, say like 10 or 15 minutes, we'd discuss our findings together. See if others got the same or similar results - passage breaks, significant people, significant events, etc. The Bible study leaders would help make sure we stayed on the right track. Next we'd move onto what we thought the text was saying in context. And finally we'd end with how the text might apply to us today. In short, it was the tried and true "observation, interpretation, and application" (OIA) method of Bible study. Not that anyone necessarily said so explicitly, at least not to my memory, but that's what we were learning to do in learning how to study the Bible. This is one of the key things I have in mind for a new Christian to prioritize or emphasize over reading systematic theology per se.

And, to be frank, I don't think the rest of my reply is really all that necessary in comparison to this very first point. Honestly all that's really needed for the new Christian is the Lord and his Word in a good Bible translation (or better yet in multiple good Bible translations, such as those available in a free Bible app like Logos, The Literal Word, BibleArc, STEP Bible, or a plethora of others), regular committed prayer, and simply getting to know and love fellow Christians in a good church. The rest will come in time and with personal interest. In that respect, the rest of my reply is just addenda.

Related, Paul Washer has said he can discern a difference between the Christian who has built their systematic theology from reading works of systematic theology and the Christian who has built their systematic theology from close study of the Bible in intimate communion with the Lord. I think that's likely overstated, as if the two are mutually exclusive or at least in tension with one another, but still Washer may be onto something.

2. Creeds, confessions, and catechisms. These are underrated ways to learn theology. I'd recommend the book Creeds, Confessions, and Catechisms: A Reader's Edition edited by Chad Van Dixhoorn. Ligonier also has a good one volume collection titled We Believe: Creeds, Catechisms, and Confessions of Faith. It has more creeds, confessions, and catechisms than Van Dixhoorn's work, but Van Dixhoorn has all the essentials and fundamentals.

The Heidelberg Catechism and the Westminster Shorter Catechism are excellent entry points. The former is more practically edifying in orientation (guilt-grace-gratitude), while the latter is more theologically precise in orientation. And I’d encourage people to look up every single biblical reference cited.

If longing for more, then consider the Westminster Larger Catechism and/or the Westminster Confession of Faith. Or the 2nd LBCF (1689) for Reformed Baptists or at least Reformed and Baptistic types. By the way, Crossway is planning to release later this year a book titled the Westminster Confession of Faith: A Comprehensive Commentary on Its History, Theology, and Application (edited by J.V. Fesko, John Muether, and D. Blair Smith). It will include contributions from the likes of James Anderson, Gray Sutanto, Sinclair Ferguson, and many others.

Likewise there are good modern creeds, confessions, and catechisms. Such as Tim Keller's New City Catechism and Thomas West and Trevin Wax's The Gospel Way Catechism - or should I say counter catechism.

Keep in mind we don’t need to agree with everything (I certainly don’t) in order to learn from the creeds, confessions, and catechisms.

3. Prayers and hymns. Past and present prayers and hymns. These are also underrated ways to learn theology as well as doxology. I think Banner of Truth publishes little books on prayers from the likes of John Calvin and Charles Spurgeon and several others. Not to mention the Valley of Vision. By the way, A Way to Pray by Matthew Henry is wonderful. And Jonathan Gibson has a series of fine liturgical type books published by Crossway (e.g. Be Thou My Vision). Many of these are free to download on places like CCEL, Monergism, Project Gutenberg, and Standard eBooks, though the quality can vary. The Anglican Book of Common Prayer (1662) offers much more than prayers but certainly not less. Crossway has the ESV Prayer Bible too, which was done by Don Whitney, I think. Prayer is where one can really see a Christian’s heart toward the Lord and the things of the Lord. Nothing is more important in our walk and life of faith than prayer, for prayer is communion with the Lord (Scripture and fellowship are equally important). And of course there are countless wonderful hymns across church history. A good hymnal or good music in general can perform wonders on our soul. For example, Reformed Presbyterians have good reason to value the Trinity Hymnal. There are other good ones.

4. Online material. TGC has a huge swathe of great resources, from biblical commentaries on every book of the Bible to systematic theological topics, and so much more. All written by godly evangelical scholars, often the very best scholars in their field (e.g. Don Carson, Tom Schreiner, John Frame). All for free too. Likewise other ministires like Ligonier have solid material (despite their recent troubles, from Lawson to Nichols). Also, there are so many good lectures online today. Lectures on systematic theology, biblical theology, church history, and so on. Reformed Theological Seminary has a good app to access their lectures, Phoenix Seminary is developing some great material too, and I’m sure many other seminaries aka Bible colleges aka theological colleges have great resources as well. I'm not a MacArthurite, though I have attended GCC and heard MacArthur preach and teach and have greatly appreciated him and his ministry, but several scholars at TMU/TMS have been doing phenomenal work over the years and making much of it accessible to the public (e.g. Abner Chou, William Barrick, Nathan Busenitz).

5. Books. Of course, it’s good to read good authors or good books. That should be generally encouraged. Reading good authors or good books can spur one to read other good authors or good books too!

A. Loci. There are some good single volume systematic theology books, but even the best can’t necessarily do a single locus or topic of systematic theology the justice it deserves. As such, it might be better to read a good book or two on each locus of systematic theology or subtopics of each locus than a single volume systematic theology that summarizes the whole. Such as a book on the doctrine of God aka theology proper, a good book on Christology, pneumatology, the atonement, eschatology, etc. I love John Frame’s volumes in the Lordship series for instance. Crossway has a series called Short Studies in Systematic Theology that's pitched at an introductory level.

That said, there is certainly a place and a time for both. Both the big picture or forest generalist overview of systematic theology as well the zoomed in or trees-branches-leaves specialist approach too.

B. Referential use of systematic theologies. It’s good to use systematic theology works as reference tools, while keeping the Bible front and center. Such as using Berkhof or Grudem or Frame or whoever to reference what the Bible says when one has a question.

C. Classic systematic theologies. The classics are classics for good reason. For the Reformation era Calvin and Turretin are standouts. For the English Puritans, I’d say Owen - and maybe Perkins who used to be far more famous. Jonathan Edwards of course. Shedd is good. I wish Thomas Murphy's Practical Theology was better known. Likewise William Cunningham. For the Dutch Reformed, Kuyper and Bavinck, though I hear earlier predecessors like van Mastricht are solid too (and van Mastricht was Edwards’ favorite). Bavinck’s Wonderful Works of God is his own distillation of his four volume Reformed Dogmatics for laypeople, though it’s much more, and it's so worth reading in its own right, because Bavinck brings such a breathtaking freshness to knowing and loving the Lord our God who is our highest good. For Old Princeton, Hodge, Vos, Warfield, and Machen are the standouts. And so on and so forth. The ones I find most useful to reference on specific theological questions and concerns are probably Turretin's Institutes of Electric Theology (recently reissued and beautifully redesigned) and Bavinck's very complex and sophisticated Reformed Dogmatics in 4 glorious volumes.

A caveat is some never wrote a proper systematic theology, but their systematic theology is found strewn across their works (e.g. Warfield never wrote a systematic theology, he would always defer to his great mentor Hodge, though Fred Zaspel published a great book that brings together Warfield’s thinking into something like a systematic theology).

D. Contemporary systematic theologies. For contemporary works, some good ones are: Robert Letham, though he’s more of a historical systematic theologian. I think Letham is perhaps the best single volume Reformed theology to start with because he writes well , clearly and cogently, so he's a pleasure to read; he's highly informed and intelligent, which unfortunately isn't always the case even in systematic theology; he surveys what other theologians past and present, and even some theologians whom most systematic theologies tend to bypass, have said; and he's pastoral and edifying and just enjoyable to read. Robert Reymond is good too, though he tends toward Clarkian views on knowledge and polemics or apologetics in general. I actually think Grudem is underrated by most Reformed Christians. I wouldn’t say Grudem is as intellectually on par with other systematic theologies, but he makes up for it by being so well organized and his work is very edifying, not at all dry like I'm afraid Berkhof is, at least to me, though Berkhof is a great reference. Stephen Wellum is well worth reading too, and he is a progressive covenantalist, which is contentious in Reformed Presbyterian and other circles, but many Reformed Baptists (or at least Reformed and Baptist) types love him. Wellum is a kind of hybrid of systematic theology and biblical theology. His systematic theology is projected to be three volume series, but he’s only published that first volume as far as I'm aware. Mr. Puritan himself, Joel Beeke, is a wealth of spiritual riches, though my favorite Puritan theology remains many of J.I. Packer’s works (e.g. A Quest for Godliness, "Fundamentalism" and the Word of God, God Has Spoken, Concise Theology, 18 Words). My favorite modern theologian is John Frame. I think Frame is the most intellectually astute and robust living systematic theologian. That is, Frame gets the closest to being a systematic philosophical theologian, whereas most Reformed systematic theologians are really systematic historical theologians. I say this even though I don’t entirely agree with Frame and even though he has many Reformed detractors especially in or associated with Westminster California. His colleague Vern Poythress is equally good. I love Frame and Poythress. They offer a lot of their material for free online. On theology proper, Frame's The Doctrine of God and Letham's The Holy Trinity in its second edition are the best, I think.

E. Biblical theology. For biblical theology, John Frame’s one volume Systematic Theology has a great section (“Part 2: The Biblical Story”) that is in essence biblical theology, which I don’t recall seeing in any other contemporary Reformed systematic theology. Otherwise I’d encourage reading authors like Geerhardus Vos (who also wrote a systematic theology in addition to his more famous biblical theology), Ed Clowney, Graeme Goldsworthy, O. Palmer Robertson, Alec Motyer, Don Carson, Tom Schreiner, Jim Hamilton, Mitch Chase, Michael Morales, Desi Alexander, Greg Beale, Benjamin Gladd, Stephen Dempster, Ian Vaillancourt, and so many more. Honestly we are living in the Renaissance of biblical theology, and I love it. These days I probably read more biblical theology than almost any other genre. Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law!

For those who are just starting out, it’s not my favorite translation, but the NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible serves as an excellent place to start to learn biblical theology. How the Bible fits together from Genesis to Revelation as a single story. Otherwise the New Dictionary of Biblical Theology is awesome, though I wish they'd update it since it's getting a bit long in the tooth. Perhaps my favorite advanced work is Dominion and Dynasty as an OT biblical theology. Back to introductory level material. Gladd and Beale have published The Story Retold: A Biblical-Theological Introduction to the New Testament, as well as the CSB Connecting Scripture New Testament, both excellent, and Gladd and Beale are reportedly working on The Story Foretold: A Biblical-Theological Introduction to the Old Testament and the CSB Connecting Scripture Old Testament. Gladd took over Don Carson’s editorial role for the generally excellent New Studies in Biblical Theology (NSBT) series as well. For an introductory level series, I'd recommend Crossway's Short Studies in Biblical Theology (SSBT). IVP's Essential Studies in Biblical Theology is somewhere between SSBT and NSBT, though generally closer to SSBT. Lexham has the Evangelical Biblical Theology Commentary series which is also between SSBT and NSBT, I think, though generally closer to NSBT. There are several others (e.g. Biblical Theology of the New Testament Series with Zondervan), but the ones I've mentioned should be more than sufficient for now.

Hope that helps a wee bit.

More Evidence For The Historicity Of The "I Am" Statements Of Jesus

2026-03-26T06:56:00.006-04:00

I wrote a post a couple of years ago about some evidence for the historicity of the "I am" statements of Jesus in the fourth gospel. Something I didn't mention there is that some of the "I am" passages or contexts connected to them, depending on how you define the terms, include characteristics of Jesus that are widely attested elsewhere. See the discussions of John 8:59 and 9:6 here. Those verses come just after the "I am" statements in 8:58 and 9:5. The verisimilitude of Jesus' behavior in these passages adds to the cumulative argument for the historicity of the "I am" statements.

While there's a danger of assigning too much significance to something like verisimilitude, there's also a danger of assigning too little significance to it. One way to approach the subject I'm addressing in this post is to ask if there would be any diminishment of the credibility of the John 8 and John 9 passages if they didn't refer to the behaviors of Jesus in question, but instead only referred to behaviors not corroborated by other sources. There would be a diminishment, even though it wouldn't be a large one. It doesn't have to be large to have some significance.

The Benefits Of Studying The Resurrection

2026-03-24T05:32:00.004-04:00

"For he who has learnt to study innumerable [truths] concerning the resurrection, how should he fear death? How should he shudder any more?" (John Chrysostom, Homilies On Hebrews 4:6)

It's often suggested that religion doesn't have much practical value. It doesn't come in contact with everyday life enough, it's too abstract, what it addresses has too little significance, concerns like food and money are more interesting, etc. The degree to which people hold such views varies, but even many professing Christians believe such things to some extent. You can see it in their time management, for example, in that they spend an inordinately large amount of their time on secular and trivial activities, just like the surrounding culture.

But Easter provides some examples, among many others, of how wrong that sort of mindset is. Nothing is as pragmatic as God, and the issues most closely associated with him, often referred to as "religion", are important accordingly. Death is a major illustration of that fact. If you can't find practicality in overcoming death, something's wrong with you. If you care about yourself, you should care about your death. If you care about your family, you should care about their death. And so on. We can go on to think of other subjects along the same lines. Just as we want to plan for a business trip we're making or an upcoming vacation, how much more should we want to learn about the afterlife and plan for it? We should keep such issues in mind as we think about the Easter season and religious topics more broadly.

The Growth Of The Evidence For Christianity

2026-03-22T07:37:00.001-04:00

It's sometimes suggested that the arguments for Christianity haven't developed much. There's not a lot being offered beyond the repetition of certain philosophical arguments for God's existence, historical arguments for prophecy fulfillment, historical arguments for Jesus' resurrection, and so forth.

Even if that were the case, that sort of evidence would be sufficient. And much of that older evidence often gets overlooked or underestimated (e.g., the evidence for certain Old Testament miracles, the evidence for apostolic miracles).

There's been more of an increase in the evidence for Christianity than is typically suggested. We've addressed a lot of examples in other posts: apparitions of Jesus, name statistics in the Biblical documents, the evidence for the Testimonium Flavianum in Josephus, modern healings, etc. Think of all of the developments in archeology over the years, for example. Old lines of argument often have new applications. I've written about modern examples of prophecy fulfillment, for instance. The work done in contexts like intelligent design and the paranormal isn't applicable only to Christianity, but it furthers the case for Christianity as far as it goes. And there are frequent advances in those fields.

Since our culture is so secular and trivial, issues like the ones I'm citing in this post don't get discussed much. And even among Christians, few people (as a percentage) bring these things up or attempt to persuade others about them. Those aren't problems with the state of the evidence, though. They're problems with how the state of the evidence is being handled.

Including The Resurrection Claim In A Prophecy Argument With Hostile Corroboration

2026-03-19T05:05:00.001-04:00

We've argued that Isaiah 53:10-11 likely refers to the resurrection of the Servant of the Lord figure in Isaiah's Servant Songs. Though there's good evidence for Jesus' resurrection from Christian sources, there's some evidence from non-Christian sources as well. So, the fulfillment of Isaiah 53:10-11 is another example of a prophecy whose fulfillment is evidenced by hostile corroboration. There was early non-Christian corroboration of the empty tomb, and some of the people who claimed to have seen Jesus after he rose from the dead were non-Christians who apparently converted to Christianity as a result of an experience they thought was an encounter with the risen Jesus. See here on James, here on Paul, and here on the likelihood that other non-Christians had such experiences. It's not an adequate response to object that people like James and Paul were Christians. The point is that they were hostile to Christianity originally and converted under circumstances relevant to what I'm arguing for in this post.

Another way of putting it is that the plausibility of the fulfillment of Isaiah 53:10-11 is significantly increased when multiple non-Christian sources support the resurrection of Jesus in multiple ways (corroborating the empty tomb, corroborating Jesus' appearing to people alive after his death). One way to appreciate the significance of this kind of evidence is to think of the alternatives. Think of how easily the situation could have been otherwise and how the case for Jesus' resurrection would be weakened if there hadn't been such hostile corroboration.

These things have a cumulative effect. Is it all just happenstance that Jesus' life lined up so well with the chronology of Daniel's Seventy Weeks prophecy, the Romans chose penal practices that align so well with relevant Old Testament passages, the figure whose life just happened to line up so well in these contexts had so many hostile sources corroborating his resurrection in various ways, etc.?