Most Interesting Reading of 2022
About this time of year many writers will issue a “best books of the year” list. That’s not quite what I’m doing here. I’m not listing the most profound or most helpful reading I’ve done. Instead, I’m listing the twenty books...
Doing All Things to the Glory of God
In 1 Corinthians 8–10 the apostle Paul addresses the question of whether Christians should eat meat that has been offered to idols. In chapter 8 his general answer is that an idol is nothing in the world. If an idol is nothing, then meat that has been offered to idols...
Incarnate Forevermore
As Christians, we believe that God exists as three eternal persons: the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. In God’s plan of redemption, the Son humbled Himself to assume to His person a fully human nature. When through the Spirit Mary conceived and was carrying...
Divine Nature, Divine Persons
God is so great and so high above us that we shall never wrap our understanding around Him. He has revealed Himself to us, and what He has said about Himself is true, but we shall never know the whole truth. We shall be learning about Him forever, and we shall always...
Immanent and Economic
Christian orthodoxy affirms the deity of Christ as a fundamental of the faith. The first five verses of John 17 seem to challenge that commitment in several ways. They describe the Son (Jesus Christ) in ways that appear to mark Him as subordinate to the Father. These...
Father and Son
Arians and Unitarians love the opening verses of John 17, a passage in which Jesus prays not only for His disciples but also for those who would believe through their word (v 20). Specifically, the first five verses make three sets of claims that are sometimes taken...
How to Speak at a “Questionable” Funeral
Have you ever had occasion to speak at the funeral of someone whose faith in Christ is uncertain? While we never can truly know whether a decedent has trusted the Lord for salvation—only God is qualified to judge the hearts of mankind—we have all attended a...
Give to the Max 2022
“Give to the Max” has arrived! It began November 1 and it will end on November 17. Many years ago, Central Baptist Theological Seminary began to participate in “Give to the Max Day” every November. The event is sponsored by GiveMN, a...
Jesus and the Bible: Old Testament Miracles
Some people talk as if they wish to believe in the inspiration of the Bible, but they stumble over its miraculous stories. To them, accounts like Lot’s wife becoming a pillar of salt or Jonah being swallowed by a whale or great fish seem mythological, not...
Jesus and the Bible: His Temptation
How should we view the Bible? How should we use it? One of the ways we can answer these questions is to see how Jesus viewed and employed the Bible. When we do, we discover that Jesus both saw and used the Bible as the authoritative word of God. The first glimpse that...
Pilgrim’s Progress, Part 5: Pilgrim’s Progress as Fantasy
Discussions of Pilgrim’s Progress tend to focus upon either its literary value or its theological interpretation. Not many interpreters speak of its value as a work of fantasy. Yet Bunyan chose to incorporate multiple fantastic elements, and those fantastic...
Pilgrim’s Progress, Part 4: The Interpreter’s House
After he passes through the Wicket Gate (salvation), but before he reaches the cross and the sepulcher (assurance), Christian stops to visit the Interpreter’s House. Guided by the Interpreter, he is confronted with a series of unusual, vision-like scenes. Each...
Pilgrim’s Progress, Part 3: The Beginning of the Story
John Bunyan was a Puritan, but Puritans came in different sorts. They held differing views of church polity. They also applied their Calvinism in various ways. For example, even though they affirmed justification through faith alone, they also recognized the...
Pilgrim’s Progress, Part 2: A Literary Masterpiece
What manner of thing is Pilgrim’s Progress? Clearly it is a work of literature—indeed, a powerful one—but what kind of literature is it? The book is surprisingly difficult to classify, but several observations are in order. To begin with, Pilgrim’s...
Pilgrim’s Progress, Part 1: Context and Concerns
Charles II returned from exile to assume the English throne in 1660. He faced both ecclesiastical and political opposition from the Puritan party that had executed his father. Neither side could distinguish the political aspects of the struggle from the religious...
The Seventies: The Final Chapter
The neoevangelical movement arose primarily after the end of the Second World War. Of course, the movement had antecedents. For example, when the National Association of Evangelicals was formed in 1942, it explicitly rejected fundamentalist ideas about separation from...
The Seventies: Part Six
In the early 1970s Bill Gothard had begun to teach a series of practical Bible studies to large groups. In 1974 he began to call these the “Seminar on Basic Youth Conflicts.” They became famous for the red notebooks that attendees used. These seminars...
The Seventies: Part Five
The 1970s were an important decade for the evangelical doctrine of Scripture in more than one way. As we have seen, these years witnessed the beginning of a “battle for the Bible” during which evangelicals divided over biblical inerrancy. The inerrancy...
The Seventies: Part Four
The 1970s proved to be an important turning point for the evangelical doctrine of Scripture. Going into the decade, fundamentalists and other evangelicals shared a broad consensus (at least publicly) over the notion that inspiration was both verbal and plenary and...
The Seventies: Part Three
In 1970 American evangelicalism was divided into three main camps. A minority on the far right called for separation from all forms of apostasy, including the liberal denominations and the Roman Catholic Church: these were the separatist fundamentalists. A minority on...
About In the Nick of Time
Occasional Essays and Other Stuff for Christian Students Presented by the Research Professor of Systematic Theology of Central Baptist Theological Seminary of Minneapolis.
American Christianity needs Christian leaders. Christian leaders explain the Scriptures, bringing them to bear upon life’s urgent questions. Christian leaders exemplify the life of faith, finding their ultimate satisfaction in God alone. They unite intellectual discipline with ordinate affection, turning their entire being toward the love of God. These essays are dedicated to the task of inviting Christian students to become tomorrow’s Christian leaders.
—Kevin T. Bauder
“Be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.”