InterVarsity’s Graduate and Faculty Ministries (GFM) encourages students and faculty to live out GFM’s Four Commitments for ministry: Spiritual Formation; Community; Evangelism and Service; and Integration of Faith, Learning, and Practice.Read more…
What is the “Good News” of Jesus Christ? Part 6
Evangelism is that set of activities that aims to help non-followers of the Lord Jesus Christ become his followers for the first time and for lifelong discipleship.Read more…
What is the “Good News” of Jesus Christ? Part 5
Jesus had to die on a cross because he was Israel’s representative King.Read more…
What is the “Good News” of Jesus Christ? Part 4
The Gospel is God’s Gospel concerning his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 1:1-3). And so we now must now look at Jesus whom we are to proclaim so that we might help others come to know this Jesus and not some Western cultural distortion.Read more…
What is the “Good News” of Jesus Christ? Part 3
The summons of this Gospel is for all persons in the world of every ethnicity, race and culture to “repent and believe” that Jesus is Lord and to live their lives accordingly. This Gospel summons men and women to abandon all rival loyalties and loves, and to embrace Jesus as Lord so that they can begin to live a new life of obedience, what Paul called “the obedience of faith” (Romans 1:5, 16:26).Read more…
What is the “Good News” of Jesus Christ? Part 2
The LORD, the God of Israel, sent his Son to save and reign as Israel’s King. Paul’s message about Jesus was about the fulfillment of God’s promises to redeem not just Israel, but also the whole world. Read more…
What is the “Good News” of Jesus Christ? Part 1
This morning we want to find out what the Apostle Paul really meant by “the Gospel,” and indeed, how he presented Jesus who is the content of the Gospel. And I’ll say something too about how we might better think about evangelism.Read more…
Book Review: Common Grace and the Gospel
Summary: A collection of essays by presuppositional theologian Van Til with introduction and annotations by K. Scott Oliphint, articulating Van Til’s understanding of a Reformed doctrine of common grace, engaging views of others in this tradition that differ from his own.Read more…
Book Response: Foolishness to the Greeks, by Lesslie Newbigin
The book’s theme remains one of my primary life concerns, “What would be involved in a missionary encounter between the gospel and this whole way of perceiving, thinking, and living that we call ‘modern Western culture’”? (1) Read more…
Book Review: Abusing Scripture
In “Abusing Scripture,” the author explores the different ways we misread the Bible and consequently interpret and apply it in ways that abuse both the intent of the text, and sadly, in some cases the people with whom we apply these texts.Read more…
Scholar’s Compass: Myth Made Fact
I love reading fairy-tales and fantasy. That’s probably become evident from the very first devotion looking at creativity according to Milbank. There is a good chance that part of my love of these stories from the Perilous Realm, as Tolkien calls it, comes from my upbringing.Read more…
In Pursuit of Gospel-Driven Productivity
A Review of Matt Perman’s What’s Best Next: How the Gospel Transforms the Way You Get Things Done (Zondervan: 2014) By David H. Leonard, Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Apologetics, Luther Rice University, Atlanta, GA It might be tempting toRead more…
Writing a Christian Personal Statement: Part 2
The work of the Christian Personal Statement, therefore, is not to explain a “unified theory” of our souls, but to construct a message that honors the sovereignty of Christ through the thoughtful alignment of secular goals with our personal beliefs.Read more…
Book Review: Exclusion & Embrace
How do we engage the rich diversity of campus life as ‘groups’ come together and engage the ‘outsider’ in the new term? Miroslav Volf‘s Exclusion & Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation (Abingdon Press, 1996) has some material to offer. Read.Read more…
The Jamaica Call to Action (Part 1): Two Convictions
Note from the Editor: The second post in a four part series on Creation Care & the Lausanne Movement by Ed Brown, Director/CEO of Care of Creation and the Senior Associate for Creation Care for the Lausanne Movement. A New Awakening?Read more…
Review: The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert
Rosaria Champagne Butterfield, The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert (Pittsburgh: Crown & Covenant Publications, 2012). 154 pp. Rosaria Butterfield is the kind of woman she herself once bitterly opposed. The homeschooling pastor’s wife and adoptive mother of four wasRead more…
The Myth of Sodom and Gomorrah
Homecomings for Christ-following secular university students may not always be perfectly sweet. The mellow look of sympathy from a friend or loved one is accompanied by the statement that “Now that you’re home, you can be with real Christian people.”Read more…
Story, Lent and The Life of Pi
Last week I wrote about The Oscars and Lent. I wrote that these two phenomena share more in common than is usually suggested. Today I want to move in for a closer look–at the stories themselves. If this annual cultural ritualRead more…
Why I’m (Still) A Christian — Part II
Last time around, I wrote about some conditions which I would consider necessary to a Christian faith, but that are not sufficient for me to be satisfied with one. If you’re not familiar with the notion of necessary and sufficientRead more…
Paradox and the Calling of the Christian Scholar
I am delighted to introduce a new series today from Dr. Richard T. Hughes, Distinguished Professor of Religion and Director of the Sider Institute for Anabaptist, Pietist, and Wesleyan Studies at Messiah College. Tom spoke with Richard at the ForgivenessRead more…
Evangelism in the Academy
Much evangelism happens on campus — indeed, the college campus might be the central place where evangelism takes place in US culture — but I’d wager that very little evangelism happens within the academy, inside the formal and informal structuresRead more…
A Beautiful Summation of the Gospel
For your reflection in the midst of Holy Week and in the days which follow: God created us to share in this relationship (between the Father and the Son) and gave us a share in the communion of the TrinityRead more…
Sharing the Gospel with Faculty Colleagues
As you may know, evangelism is a core value of InterVarsity, and InterVarsity’s Graduate and Faculty Ministries (of which ESN is a part) has named “Evangelism and Service” as one of its four core commitments. But several of us withinRead more…
Evil,Subjectivism, and the Gospel
The ESN Day Ahead ended well, and the main Following Christ conference has begun. I am assisting with the Humanities track, chaired by Michael Murray of Franklin & Marshall. In his opening remarks about human flourishing, Dr. Murray described theRead more…