Extracurricular Activities 6.21.14 — Hell, Ministry Burnout, and the Call to Priesthood

Fred Sander's Theses on the Revelation of the Trinity

As I’ve been working on a large writing project on the doctrine of the Trinity (The Triune God in Zondervan’s New Studies in Dogmatics series), one of the things that has increasingly called for attention is the peculiarity of the way this doctrine was revealed. It’s simply not like other doctrines. I think the doctrine ought to be handled in a way that takes account of the way it was made known. More strongly: the mode of the revelation of the Trinity has structural implications for the right presentation of the doctrine. Here, in compressed form (propounded but not defended), are guidelines I’ve been working with for handling the doctrine.

Tim Challies on One of the Most Important Theological Works You've Never Heard Of

The Reformers wrote a great body of literature to guide the church through the time’s treacherous waters. But in the generation after the Reformation, there remained little in the way of a comprehensive, rigorously systematized synthesis of Reformed theology to precisely communicate and preserve the Reformers’ legacy.

In the midst of this battle for truth, the gifted scholar Amandus Polanus provided the Reformed churches with one of the earliest and most extensive Reformed systematic theologies: theSyntagma Theologiae Christianae. This monumental achievement synthesizes the body of Reformed theology into a coherent and rigorous system. Not only does it preserve and defend the Reformers’ original theology; it also presents it in a precise, nuanced way.

Scot McKnight Examines Arguments Rethinking Hell

The first arguement questions: Does the Bible teach the soul has it has been framed in classic formulations, and is the soul essentially immortal?

The second and third arguments are connected to victory and substitutionary atonement, respectfully. 

Peter Enns Interviews J.R. Briggs Regarding Pastors, Burnout, Failure, and Shame

Today’s post is an interview with J. R. Briggs, author of Fail: Finding Hope and Grace in the Midst of Ministry Failure (see also here). Briggs serves as Cultutral Cultivator for The Renew Community, a network of Jesus communities made up of skeptics & dreamers scattered throughout Southeastern Pennsylvania. He also authored When God Says Jump: Biblical Stories That Inspire You to Risk Big. His full bio can be found here.

Two Michigan Villages Offer Case Study in Call to Priesthood

Aside for the mole grazing his right eyebrow, it is difficult to distinguish Gary Koenigsknecht from his identical twin, Todd, four minutes the elder...with their ordination on Saturday, they have begun careers as Roman Catholic priests, two of 477 men in the United States expected to be ordained this year. They demonstrate that priestly vocations are not evenly distributed by family or geography...In an era when the number of priests in the United States continues to dwindle — declining by 11 percent in the past decade and crippling the Catholic Church’s ability to meet the needs of a growing Catholic population — this rural patch of Clinton County offers a case study in the science and mystery of the call to priesthood.

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