T.H.L. Parker calls 1553–1554 Calvin’s “fateful years.” According to Parker, this was when “two large storms blew from different quarters and raged simultaneously.” One was Calvin’s battle with the libertines; the other was the infamous Servetus affair.

The Genevan air was charged in the Fall of 1553. It was September 3 when the confrontation with the libertines reached its climax, and it was October 26-27 when Michael Servetus was condemned and burned at the stake.

First, the libertines.

A pack of unregenerate Genevans—also members of the church in Calvin’s magisterial (and non-credobaptist) context—stirred up the trouble. Despite their love of license and open embrace of immo…

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What follows is one of the greatest reasons for a man to get married and stay married: not the rapturous flame of eros, but the refining fires of holiness.

No relationship is more clearly commanded to model the death of Christ. No relationship is more costly—in both senses of that word (painful and precious).

This quote comes from one of C. S. Lewis’s last books, published in 1960, The Four Loves. In it we hear the wise fruit of a lifetime.

The husband is the head of the wife just in so far as he is to her what Christ is to the Church. He is to love her as Christ loved the church—read on—and gave his life for her (Ephesians 5:25).

This headship, then, is

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He had the Holy One of Israel in his house, reclining at his table. The Prophet that Moses had foretold was sharing dinner with him. The Lord of glory, the Resurrection and the Life, was speaking with him face to face. The great climactic moment of history he claimed to be living for had arrived. It should have been a deliriously wonderful, breathtaking honor for Simon to host the Messiah.

But Simon was not amazed.  As he looked at Jesus, all he saw was a dusty Nazarene whose claims could be interpreted as delusional.

And Jesus’ feet were still dirty. Offering foot washing to guests had been a deeply ingrained custom for Near Eastern peoples for thousands of years. To not offer it was to d…

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One of the roots of Christian Hedonism as I have pondered it for the last forty years is C. S. Lewis. Reading Alan Jacobs’ biography, The Narnian has underlined the influence Lewis has had on my thinking.

Here is a striking sentence about Lewis’s lifelong pursuit: “Lewis’s perpetual task both as a defender of Christianity and as an advocate of medieval literature is to call people to delight” (p. 190).

One of his paths to this “perpetual task” was his analysis of the devil’s use of pleasure. Screwtape (speaking for the devil—“Our Father”—in The Screwtape Letters) says to one of his under-devils:

Never forget that when we are dealing with any pleasure in its healthy an…

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James Baldwin, novelist, essayist, poet, was born August 2, 1924 and died November 30, 1987. From child evangelist in a store-front church in Harlem, to the front of TIME magazine as a dominant prophetic voice of the sixties, to a disillusioned anti-American living and dying in France, Baldwin’s life was another witness to the power of Christian roots and the tragedy that comes when the root is severed.

In 1963, when I was a junior in high school, Baldwin published his most powerful book, The Fire Next Time. Unlike his previous Notes of a Native Son and Nobody Knows My Name, his hope for racial healing in America had almost disappeared when The Fire was published.

Its title is taken from a…

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After a golden three-year exile, Calvin returned to the city that expelled him. He didn’t jump at the opportunity but went reluctantly, feeling constrained by God’s will to resume the work.

It was September, 1541 when he stepped back into the pulpit and continued his exposition of the Psalms, picking up at the very place he had left off.

Now that Calvin was back, he would settle in for life in the Geneva he would be famous for.

Severe trials would come the following year in the form of sickness and death. The plague that had come through Strasburg now swept through Geneva. Calvin refused to abandon his flock and seek safety outside town, risking his life to remain and comfort …

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On vacation I was meditating on Luke 10:17-20 where Jesus tells us not to be overly excited about our ability to do feats of triumph in defeating the devil. Rather he says, fix the root of your joy in this: Your names are written in heaven. Amazing.

Most of us are moved more by the fireworks of miracles than by the mere assurance of salvation. Something is amiss. So I lingered long enough here to put my heart right. And in the process wrote a poem.

Rejoice! Your Names Are Written in Heaven

Luke 10:17-20

The seventy-two returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name!” And he said to them, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. B

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Ralph Davis’s The Word Became Fresh is an outstanding resource for those eager to preach from the largest chunk of their Bibles—the Old Testament narratives. In a mere 150 pages, Davis walks through all the basics that are so obvious they take brilliance to see. His style is a wonderful blend of humor and seriousness, substance and simplicity (even if a bit too punchy at points).

In this book, Davis discusses everything from getting a macro sense of whole books to how to apply individual stories to our lives today, all the while keeping the focus on God. Along with covering how to approach narrative, he discusses more specifically certain difficult OT texts and ends the book by using hi…

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The helmets referred to in the Bible are for protection in mortal battle. A blow to the head with a mace or a bludgeon would crush your skull and kill you.

So when Paul says that we should put on “for a helmet the hope of salvation” he means that there are blows that come to our spiritual life that could destroy us, if we were not protected by the hope of salvation.

The hope of salvation—that we will not perish but obtain eternal life in the presence of Christ—absorbs the blow and keeps it from killing us. Blows still come in war and in life. Helmets don’t prevent blows. They just prevent them from destroying us.

One of my clearest experiences of how this works was in December…

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