Probably my favorite theologian of the early church, Irenaeus was a thinker captivated by the pursuit of truth about God. Here’s a quick rundown of his life and legacy, as well as the elements of his theology that most stand out to me.
Theology
The Earliest Church Fathers on Election and Predestination (Part Two: Apostolic Fathers)
Christians have long wrestled with the subject of how God’s plans and actions in salvation interact with human responsibility and choice. And it is common for proponents of any theological system to appeal to the writings of theologians from the… Read More ›
The Earliest Church Fathers’ Views on Election and Predestination (Part One: Clement of Rome)
One topic that’s of perennial interest to Christians is the question of how God’s role in saving people intersects with human choice. How does God’s sovereignty (or, more accurately, his providence) relate to human responsibility? The question arises because the… Read More ›
On the Supposed “Plain Meaning” of Scripture
I just picked up Christopher Bryan’s little book And God Spoke: The Authority of the Bible for the Church Today (Cowley, 2002), and in it he offers this excellent nugget of wisdom that I think many in the church need… Read More ›
The Apocryphal Book of Sirach and its Influence on Early Christianity
One of the apocryphal books I think is particularly interesting is the book called “The Wisdom of Jesus Ben Sirach.” It has also gone by a couple of other names, such as simply Sirach, Ben Sira, or Ecclesiasticus. It is… Read More ›
The Apocrypha in a Nutshell
Recently I’ve been working my way through the Apocrypha. If you aren’t familiar with these, they are a collection of Jewish writings composed during the time between the Old and New Testaments (400 BC to the first century AD). The… Read More ›
The Bible’s Purpose, According to the Bible
Does the Bible come with a thesis statement? Turns out it has several. Here’s what we can learn from examining them all.
What Was the Bible Designed to Do?
We are exploring two related questions: what is the Bible, and what is it for? In my previous post (which you’ll want to read before continuing, if you missed it), I suggested that two common answers fall short of the… Read More ›
What IS the Bible? How We Answer Affects Everything
This past Sunday I had the pleasure of teaching a session at our church on the purpose and authority of Scripture. It is amazing to me to see the myriad ways in which people approach the questions of “What is… Read More ›
What Did Worship Look Like in the Early Church?
In my recent deep-dive back into church history, one of the things I’ve been most interested in is learning more about what early Christian worship looked like. There’s certainly a lot we can learn simply from reading the New Testament…. Read More ›
Theology Pathfinder 