The Westminster Theological Society is a group a ministers in the EPC who are striving to keep the denominational discussions and priorities centered around scripture. In 2017 they began publishing the Westminster Society Journal, which is aimed at EPC ministers, ruling elders, and interested lay people. I contributed an essay to the 2018 volume, ‘The Needful Duty of Improving Our Baptism’. A copy of the journal can be found here. The opening paragraphs of my essay are below.
I have found myself thinking of my own graduation from seminary in the midst of this commencement season, as well as the charge that was given to me and my fellow graduates by our professor of New Testament Interpretation, Dr. Dan McCartney.
Dr. McCartney delivered a charge based on 2 Timothy 2:23-26, and I still return to and ponder his counsel from that night. Imitation of Christ is the foundation of ministry. To be a disiscpler, I must be an imitator of the one who is discipling me…
The Monologion presents one of the best (if not the best) examples of the ontological differences between Christianity and other faiths, particularly the static monotheism of Islam and the pan(en)theism of Hinduism.
§29-31 begin to show this forth. The supreme essence of reality creates by verbalization. There is a nonmaterial manner by which the supreme essence makes all things. that is an expression of the essence that is neither created by it, but is one with, and yet distinct from it. This expression, or Word, is simple, not composed of other elements, but is a single Word of the supreme essence This Word is one with, coming from the supreme essence, without being subsumed by it…
“The Entwives ordered them to grow according to their liking; for the Entwives desired order, and plenty, and peace (by which they meant that things should remain where they had set them).” Treebeard on the Entwives, The Two Towers, page 99.
