Category: Theology
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James 2 and the Demons Who Believe
James 2:19 is the verse people reach for when they want to say that belief is not enough. “You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder!” The inference is supposed to be obvious: demons believe and are damned, therefore belief of that kind does not save, therefore something must…
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A Correction and a Concession
On 6 July, Bob Wilkin of the Grace Evangelical Society published a response to one paragraph of my article of 19 June, The Fringe of Focused Free Grace. Since he named me, and since some readers will take his reply as a sufficient answer, the record needs a brief correction. This post is that correction,…
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When Believing Is Never Enough
Among the four Gospels, John’s is the one that states its own purpose, and it ties that purpose directly to eternal life. John tells us as much: Now Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these were written, that you may believe…
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The Fringe of “Focused Free Grace”
We decided in 2024 to distance ourselves from those who initiated the fracture Focused vs. Flexible Free Grace. It had become unmistakable that their fringe position had moved to the centre of their ministry, and from there it produced exactly the kind of ripple effects one should expect: confusion, graceless behaviour, and unnecessary divisions amongst…
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Women and Ministry
The evidence in Acts and the Epistles does not support a neat contrast between active male officeholders and merely supportive women. Women appear in the New Testament as disciples, prophets, patrons, teachers in at least some settings, hosts of churches, and named co-workers in the Pauline mission. The disputed question is therefore narrower than it…
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The Oldest Hatred and Its Deepest Explanation
There is a question that secular historiography has never fully resolved: why, of all the peoples who have experienced persecution, displacement, and dispossession, is it the Jews who have been subjected to it by practically every civilisation in every era, under radically different pretexts, with a uniquely exterminationist intensity? This is not a rhetorical question.…
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One Baptism, Many Claims: Rethinking Spirit Baptism from Scripture
If you spend any time in overlapping Pentecostal, Reformed, and broader evangelical circles, you quickly discover that “baptism in the Holy Spirit” functions as a kind of theological Rorschach test. For some, it is a dramatic post‑conversion crisis marked by tongues; for others, it is simply Paul’s shorthand for conversion itself; for yet others, it…
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The Pagan Origins of Calvinism
The history of Reformed theology is often presented as the recovery of truth passed down from the Apostles. However, things are not exactly so. Dr. Kenneth Wilson, an Oxford-trained theologian and orthopedic surgeon, has in the past few years made waves with his challenges to this narrative, with a provocative thesis: the deterministic theology that…
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Once a son, always a son
Rembrandt’s Return of the Prodigal Son, depicting the father’s embrace of his wayward son. The son’s ragged state did not nullify his sonship or the father’s love, illustrating the enduring bond between God and His children. For many readers, the parable of the prodigal son conjures up a dramatic conversion scene, an unbeliever hitting rock bottom…
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Repentance and the Kingdom — Why Israel still matters
I’ve written and argued this point several times before, and for me, it really doesn’t take more than a careful reading of Matthew 24 to see that the second coming of Jesus is a Judeo-centric event. It is Jerusalem that He mourns over. It is to Zion that He returns. And it is Israel’s national…