In 1854, the “father of modern church history” and the most important church historian in America, returned to his native land. For ten years, Philip Schaff had taught in the wilderness of Pennsylvania. Recruited to teach at Mercersburg College, Schaff came to America at the age of twenty-four. And after a decade of learning the customs of America, he returned to Germany, where he gave three lectu...

“And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh,and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions,and your old men shall dream dreams . . .” - Acts 2:17As I showed last week, the “latter days” is a biblical term that begins in Genesis 49:1 and proceeds through the entire Old Testament. Moses uses the term, and so do t...

Eschatology precedes soteriology.This is an axiom that I explained when we looked at Genesis 1–2 and how God made the world. When God brought the world into existence, he had a plan for all things. And this telos, or goal, was the basis for saying that proper eschatology depends upon proper protology. And thus, from the beginning of creation, we can see how eschatology began to emerge.In fact, whe...

The Bible is art. And for new creations in Christ, who are the workmanship of God (Eph. 2:10), it is good for us to see all the ways that God’s Spirit inspired the Scripture. For just as the beauty of our creator is made visible in the heavens and the earth, so his majestic wisdom is found throughout the Bible. And this Sunday, we have a passage whose art is worth observing.When I say art, I have ...