Theology

A couple weeks ago I presented a paper at the Southeast Regional meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society. It was on the topic of the “covenant of grace” and how Genesis 3:15 relates to it. I’ll give you a summary of my argument below, but you can also read the full paper here. Presenting papers in a setting like the ETS meeting with questions asked and feedback given always sharpens the work and reveals ways to improve it.

Genesis 3:15 is sometimes called the protoevangelium because it's "the first gospel," the first promise from God about Christ redeeming us from sin and…

One of the members of Cornerstone, Forrest DeVita, has done a good bit of work thinking through various arguments for (and against) the existence of God. This is a personal study of his and also connected to his evangelistic work at NCSU with Ratio Christi. We invited him to share on one particular argument for God's existence. Enjoy! 

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How can you demonstrate to others that God exists? Enter the Kalam Cosmological Argument.

The Psalmist writes:

The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and…

Given our strong ties to the Reformed community, the issue of baptism comes up fairly often. Our commitment to "believer's baptism" and not "infant baptism" sets us apart from many historically Reformed traditions (see below). My book for those considering baptism, Believe and Be Baptized, covers many issues connected to baptism and who should be baptized. In the back of it is an appendix which explains more specifically why we don't baptize infants (i.e., why we're not paedobaptists). Because of the importance of this topic it seemed worth making it more readily accessible to you. May it encourage you! 

Daniel

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Introduction

This…

Last Sunday I mentioned the idea that the Holy Spirit in 1 Peter 1:10–11 is called “the Spirit of Christ.” This is a mysterious title for the Spirit and is worth reflecting on a little more.

In my passage, Peter told us something unexpected about OT prophecy. He told us the prophets spoke because they were inspired by “the Spirit of Christ”:

Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, 11 inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted…

Every day we drive by dozens of “churches” and…

Well, that’s not actually true. Every day we drive by dozens of church buildings, or buildings where churches meet. But these structures of steel, drywall, glass, and paint could just as easily be gyms or schools or hair salons. They happen to be church buildings, but really they’re just buildings.

It’s good every once in a while to check ourselves in how we use certain words. “Church” is one of those words. If we’re not careful our shorthand can affect how think and feel about certain things. With “church,” we can…

A quote from The Trellis and the Vine: The Ministry Mind-Shift that Changes Everything, by Colin Marshall and Tony Payne.

Last Sunday we finished our 1 Thessalonians series and looked at 5:23 in that letter, "Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." The main burden of this text is assuring us that God will indeed finish his work of making us holy. He will not fail in that!

But this verse also presents us with a question: When it says "spirit and soul and body," is it assuming that we have three distinct parts in us—that…

This week we begin a short series out of 2 Thessalonians. Read the book if you can. It's only three chapters. For extra-credit look again at Acts 17:1-9 to recall what the church plant in Thessalonica looked like. Here are five things to know as we approach these sermons:

1. THE ORIGINAL CHURCH PLANT

In Acts 17 a group of apostles went to the city of Thessalonica to plant a church, estimated to be in 49 A.D. This was the team sent out by the Jerusalem church to deliver the letter written in Acts 15. Paul and Barnabas were originally…

Josh Blount serves as pastor in one of our churches in Franklin, West Virginia....I asked him to contribute to ours, and he sent a few posts that we'll sprinkle in over the next weeks. Here is one where he addresses some of the key elements of a worldview