The New England Congregationalist pastor and missionary John Eliot (1604-1690) exhorted readers of his The Harmony of the Gospels (1678) to be wise. Wisdom, he said, is one aspect of the image of God in human beings (24). The full title of Eliot’s Lord’s Supper “preparativo” is The Harmony of the Gospels in the Holy […]
Jesse Albrecht, MDiv ’15, recently shared this testimony with a group of friends of Bethlehem College & Seminary: “I was still in my cap and gown on the night of commencement when I accepted a position with a missions organization focused on training pastors and church leaders in developing countries. I received my degree on a […]
One way to think about the mission of Bethlehem College & Seminary is to think of watering a desert where a very old seed is planted. I allude to C.S. Lewis: Really great moral teachers never do introduce new moralities: it is quacks and cranks who do that. The task of the modern educator is […]
The Advent season has begun and what a glorious opportunity it presents for us to make much of Jesus Christ. Whether you’re single, married, married with young children, empty nesters, or grandparents, the opportunity is there. While the world around us goes commercial with new, “special” days like Black Friday and Cyber Monday, it just […]
In 1974, John Piper became what has turned out to be my most influential life-long mentor. He was my professor for 5 courses in Greek exegesis, which he taught while I was a student at Bethel College. I learned from him a way of reading the text, proposition by proposition, after having diagrammed the Greek […]
This time next week many of us will be gathered with family and friends to celebrate the things that we are thankful for. For Christians, this shouldn’t be anything out of the ordinary. We have been given eyes to see that God is the giver of all good gifts (James 1:16). God has given many […]
The homeless man who changed my life Who would have thought that a chance encounter with a homeless man at a local Starbucks would change the trajectory of our church and of my family forever? It was a Tuesday morning, and the man’s name was Delbert. I saw him standing there and asked if he […]
As an average Christian parent, with more screw ups than I dare mention, the words “Who am I kidding?” quickly swirl around in my mind when I consider the task of passing a Christ centered theological heritage on to my kids. Then once I start remembering how many family devotions I’ve skipped or forgotten, it […]
The pattern of Revelation and Response encapsulates how God relates to us as human beings. We would have no accurate idea about God without His self-revelation: witness the fanciful and grotesque images and imaginings about God that other religions have come up with. By His grace, God has condescended to reach into human history to […]
Jesus described himself as “the light of the world” in John 8:12. That’s an amazing description when you contemplate its meaning and implications. It’s a theme that each of the gospel writers (with the exception of Mark) used in their accounts of Jesus’ ministry. As the perfect, sinless, Son of God, Jesus was and is […]