A feather in your theological cap.
The personal blog of pastor, grammarian, and runner Brent Niedergall
Sunday Prayer (Psalm 137)
This is the latest in the series of corporate prayers for Sunday worship that I’m writing from the Psalms, working through them in reverse order. Heavenly Father, We come before you as a church family—each of us with our own mix of experiences and emotions. ...
A Theology of Dating Your Spouse
Back in 2012 on a small Army base in eastern Afghanistan, I read a book with an eye-catching cover by Justin Buzzard titled Date Your Wife. If memory serves me right, it was a good read. But what has stuck with me more than anything is its simple little imperatival...
Japanese Beetles and a Generous Master
Ever worked for pennies? Years ago, a friend and I got paid to catch Japanese Beetles. My friend’s neighbour and pastor had this gigantic garden. And he agreed to pay us a penny for every Japanese Beetle we could pull off his plants and throw into a bucket of...
Bavinck: Underestimating and Overestimating Dogmatics
I recently had to break the news to one of my children that Africa is a continent. Africa is not a country. And Scripture is not dogmatics. Dogma (and its nearly identical twin, systematic theology) is derived from Scripture. Bavinck uses the analogy of Scripture...
Are These the Last Days?
One of the "joys" of training to become a soldier in the United States Army is pulling what’s called fireguard duty. The Army used to house soldiers in wooden barracks with wood-burning stoves. So soldiers would rotate shifts through the night to make sure the place...
Jesus the Great Philosopher
Jesus is the solution to mankind’s greatest problem, but He also offers the answers to mankind’s greatest questions. We would do well to consider Him, as Jonathan Pennington encourages us, as a philosopher of the ancient variety who thought and taught wisdom. Ancient...
Sunday Prayer (Psalm 138)
This is the latest in the series of corporate prayers for Sunday worship that I’m writing from the Psalms, working through them in reverse order. Our God and heavenly Father, we are thankful we can approach you boldly as your children because of the finished work of...
Bavinck: What is dogmatics? Why do we need it?
Yesterday, while writing a short presentation on the general topic of theology (Coming soon!), I flipped through a dozen or so theological works to see how others have defined theology and its goal. Not everyone does it well. Some do it better than others. Herman...
Charitable Writing
We are writers. Whether we’re writing for school, work, or enjoyment—we write. But how is a Christian supposed to write? Richard Hughes Gibson and James Edward Beitler III, in their book Charitable Writing: Cultivating Virtue Through Our Words, remind us that every...
What Should I Read on Discourse Analysis?
If you saw my previous post, “What Should I Read on New Testament Textual Criticism?”, you know what to expect here. This time the subject is discourse analysis (DA) and particularly for its use in NT exegesis. These are my categorized recommendations according to the...