In our day, while biblical and theological studies certainly continue to abound, questions about the traditional Christian understanding of the atonement are not primarily focused on the question is it biblical. Nor are they focused on whether it is theologically coherent. Instead, they are driven by a concern that it may be violent, and whether that is or is not biblical or theologically coherent is less important than the fact that it is unacceptable. Why? Because a bloody atonement funds or leads to bloody behavior, to various forms of evil conduct. Or does it? Would a theoretically bloodless atonement really be better?For today's episode of Greystone Conversations, Mark Garcia, President and Fellow in Scripture and Theology at Greystone Theological Institute sits down with Dr. Benjamin Burkholder, a Fellow in Scripture and Theology at Greystone who also serves North Park Church in Wexford, PA near Pittsburgh. Dr. Burkholder has written about the attraction of a bloodless atonement in modern theology and biblical studies and has a pastoral interest in its powerful role in contemporary Christian culture. Dr. Burkholder will teach a full course on this topic this coming spring of 2024, “Studies in Soteriology,” beginning in early February, and as we note in today’s conversation, we are making this class available at no cost to all Greystone Members as a benefit of your Membership.

What if preaching is not only to be carried out with humility, but is also itself a humble form of the Word of God in power? Augustine is known mostly for his large and profound theological treatises, but how can this most influential of theologians also teach us about the urgency of humility as a mode of preaching to humble people?In today's Greystone Conversations episode, Dr. Mark A. Garcia sits down with Greystone’s Associate Fellow in Christian Tradition, Dr. Charles (Chad) Kim of St Louis University. Dr. Kim is the author of a forthcoming book on Augustine and preaching, and the special contribution of his book is Dr. Kim’s exploration of the role of humility in Augustine’s preaching—not only in his content, but in his mode and approach to preaching. In a recent journal article, Dr. Kim anticipated his book in a study of how Augustine preached to an audience of (many, not exclusively) fishermen and farmers in rural North Africa. Dr. Kim emphasizes how Augustine demonstrated the way of humility found in Christ for his audience, a Christological mode that helps to explain why Augustine’s preaching looked so different from that of the modern day. The result is a rich insight into the density and power of a classical Reformed conviction found in the Second Helvetic Confession (chapter 1) but rarely found—or at least deployed—in contemporary works on preaching, namely, that preaching the Word of God is itself truly a form of the Word of God in which God comes near and draws near. How might this conviction change and inspire Reformed preaching?

What might it look like to refuse generalizations about faithful pastoral ministry and allow the people and context of actual ministerial labor to inform the measure of faithfulness?At Greystone, we make much of the ordinary sources of wisdom in God’s Word and ways. But by “ordinary” we don’t mean something less valuable or less important. In fact, we mean the opposite. It is in the ordinary (and in that sense mundane) contexts of life that God, in his ordering and sustaining providence, surrounds us with what we are to regard as sources of potential wisdom. From the ant in Proverbs whose example of industry is supposed to be noted by the sluggard, to the skilled merchant or ruler or craftsman or father or mother whose accumulated wisdom is supposed to be gleaned by the observant, God fills our lives with particular relationships and contexts that are to be attended to with spiritual interest.This informs pastoral ministry, which is not ministry to people in general but to people in particular—these people, right here, in this place and time, with their stories and backgrounds and not others. Faithful pastoral ministry is therefore something that requires not only the learned skills of biblical exegesis and hermeneutics, theology and history, and so on, but also patience, listening, and a kind of conformation to the particular people one is called to shepherd. This is of course only one particular expression of something that is true of the Christian life in general. This is more than respecting God’s providence; it’s using it.In today’s Greystone Conversations episode Dr. Mark A. Garcia sits down with Pastor Aaron Carr. Pastor Carr is the minister of Word and Sacrament at First Presbyterian Church in Trenton, Michigan in the greater Detroit area, and he is also the Director of the Greystone Learning Community there. Pastor Carr grew up in the context he now serves as pastor, which has helped him serve them in important ways: a blue-collar environment with a rugged and tenaciously faithful people. We talked about how this has shaped his ministry among them, how mentors in his life have guided his mentorship of others, and what advice he might have for those who are called to pastoral ministry—a ministry that must love particular people enough to watch, listen to, and really get to know them before deciding what care for them looks like.

Today’s Greystone Conversations episode is taken from Greystone’s upcoming Summer module, Domestic Violence in Theology & Pastoral Ministry—a module which, in many respects, might be among the most unexpected for a theology institute dedicated to the advancement of Reformed theology in the mode of Reformed catholicity. The unexpected topic of this module highlights one of the challenges the Church faces in giving this complicated topic the attention it deserves: we often treat this incredibly complex and ugly subject as though it is in some ways less theologically demanding and less theological in nature than some of the more familiar and comfortable traditional theological questions.We also highlight here another challenge in addressing this topic: the disconnect between what we think we see, hear, and feel among such people with the reality that they live with in a largely private and invisible way. We do this, in part, because we are inclined to assume that what we see, what we hear, and what we experience must be, if not exhaustive of reality, at least a very reliable indicator of reality.The responsibility therefore for pastors and all Christians is a posture of patience, wisdom, thoughtfulness, and deliberateness as necessary ingredients in interpreting a situation faithfully. Such a posture, and the related virtues, belong to some of the classical virtues the church has recognized as important for doing sound theology. Therefore, we see that domestic violence is both a theologically profound and existentially disturbing reality that is no less theological and pastorally necessary to study than any other dogmatic topic.This module will be taught online for ThM and PhD students, and will be open to all MDiv and MAR students in the Westminster at Greystone Collaboration. For access to this courses and many more, become a Greystone Member today.

How might a thematic analysis of Jeremiah, particularly the theme of the faithless bride, help pastors better serve their churches? What can Christians learn about the futility and dangers of sin by studying the Book of Jeremiah, and how might this theme of the faithless bride lead us to a deeper appreciation of Jesus Christ?Jeremiah’s confrontation with Israel over their faithlessness is still valuable for those who confront sin today when we consider two key realities about sin. First, sin is irrational. It is utter madness to try to slake one’s thirst with the grime at the bottom of a cistern when you can drink from a clear, pure spring. Second, sin’s power is broken when we are disgusted by it. We must understand that what seems so attractive about sin is actually hideously ugly. Yes, Jeremiah is about Israel and Judah, but it is also about us.As ministers of the gospel, pastors must gravely and potently confront sin and get people to see its abhorrence and the hopelessness that it drives us to before they can show and speak of the true hope that we have in Jesus Christ. And yet, here's this lingering question: how can we ever arrive here? How can we ever arrive at this knowledge of our sin when Jeremiah so emphasizes the power of self-deception and delusion? As the rest of Jeremiah will show, the new covenant will have the power to pierce our self-deception and engender true conviction in our hearts, and only by the power of God's initiative through Jesus Christ will the Faithless bride once again become a faithful wife and love her husband in her heart of hearts.Today’s Greystone Conversations episode is taken from a recent Greystone Module, Jeremiah as Christian Scripture. This module was lead by Dr. Matthew Patton, and will be on Greystone Connect for all Greystone Members soon. Dr. Patton earned his MDiv from Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia (WTS) and his PhD in Biblical Theology and Old Testament at Wheaton College under Dr. Daniel Block. He is pastor of Covenant Presbyterian Church (OPC) in Vandalia, OH.

To an extent which must be amusing to some, surprising to others, and perhaps even a bit unsettling to still others, all year long Greystone seems to be asking the question, what time is it? Is this a question the Scriptures themselves invite us to ask?From Genesis forward, including the long history of the Church since Pentecost, the people of God have recognized, confessed, and taught the theological significance of marking time. This conviction and practice is rooted in the determination to locate time among the things of creation, and thus not as an eternal attribute of God or some eternal principle existing alongside him. As part of creation, time derives its meaning and purpose not from the principles of history as such, or from purely pragmatic concerns of human and national life, nor even from general theological realities such as our doctrine of providence, but from that reality which is prior to and accounts for all of these: the Son of God himself. Time, biblically, derives its form (and thus its meaning and function) from the Son, as all features of the ritual realty of creation do. Thus biblical scholars and theologians, sensitive to how God himself explains these things, rightly point to the sun, moon, and stars of the Genesis creation narrative and the installation of Israel’s festal calendar in Lev. 23 as constitutive and formative of the relationship God’s people have to time. Scholars have also demonstrated, at great length, that this is not unique to the OT nor limited to a pre-Christ state of affairs but obtains in the NT as well. This is especially the case in work on the Gospel of John, which orders the early Church’s liturgical life by telling the story of Jesus not merely as the typological fulfillment of but also as the original and abiding meaning of that festal calendar: the form of the Son accounted for the festal calendar and his contours of birth, life, humiliation, death, resurrection, ascension, blessedness, and the like, are traced out for us in every generation by the contours of time itself, when properly interpreted and described. Thus the Church marks her time throughout the year by the same contours, though on the other side of the empty tomb, with the language often used for these contour points, namely, the so-called evangelical feast days.For this episode of Greystone Conversations, Dr. Mark A. Garcia sits down with a longtime friend of Greystone’s, Jack Franicevich, a teacher and an Anglican clergyman. Jack has written a book on how Luke’s gospel uses the OT’s liturgical institutions, including the festal calendar, to frame a new history for the Church, one that includes the special character of the Lord’s day. As Jack notes, Luke is the only NT theological historian to tell not one but two stories that each begin with the phrase, “on the first day of the week.”Besides publishing his research on Luke and sacred time in the life of the Church, Jack is also going to lead a Greystone microcourse in Coraopolis, PA and online exploring this subject matter this coming spring 2023. If you’re listening to this episode before that time, we heartily encourage you to consider signing up for this online and on-site micro-course as soon as you can.

In today’s episode of Greystone Conversations, we conclude to our conversation regarding craftsmanship and workmanship, and consider what might account for the resurgence of interest in craftmanship and the trades. This is the final episode in our five part series.For today’s Greystone Conversations episode, Dr. Mark A. Garcia is joined by Mr. Michael Sacasas and Mr. Joshua Klein, both fellows at Greystone who will be instrumental in the apprenticeship mode of Greystone new Mechanical Arts Program.

In today’s episode of Greystone Conversations, we return to our conversation regarding craftsmanship and workmanship, and consider the ethics of workmanship in skill, perception, and habit. This is the forth episode in our five part series.For today’s Greystone Conversations episode, Dr. Mark A. Garcia is joined by Mr. Michael Sacasas and Mr. Joshua Klein, both fellows at Greystone who will be instrumental in the apprenticeship mode of Greystone new Mechanical Arts Program.

In today’s episode of Greystone Conversations, we return to our conversation regarding craftsmanship and workmanship, and consider today the ends in view of such a theory of workmanship we have endeavored to express. This is the third episode in our five part series.For today’s Greystone Conversations episode, Dr. Mark A. Garcia is joined by Mr. Michael Sacasas and Mr. Joshua Klein, both fellows at Greystone who will be instrumental in the apprenticeship mode of Greystone new Mechanical Arts Program.

In today’s episode of Greystone Conversations, we return to our conversation regarding craftsmanship and workmanship, and consider today the special significance of David Pye to our overall interest in this series. This is the second episode in our five part series, and today we want to consider the very definition of craftsmanship and the larger discussion that that has long been a part of and which bears—in increasingly relevant ways—upon how we think about theological education, about ministry in the church, about relationships generally and to one another, and our relationship to God's world.For today’s Greystone Conversations episode, Dr. Mark A. Garcia is joined by Mr. Michael Sacasas and Mr. Joshua Klein, both fellows at Greystone who will be instrumental in the apprenticeship mode of Greystone new Mechanical Arts Program.

Welcome to Greystone Conversations and the first episode in this special series focused on explaining and commending an exciting new initiative at Greystone Theological Institute, which in one way is rather unique and in other ways is deeply traditional. And as you have perhaps come to expect, or at least we hope you have come to expect, the combination of something that is new with something that is in fact very old—making old things new—is very much a key concern for the Greystone Way.We can hardly think of a better example of this effort and this interest than the new Greystone initiative program we are able to discuss starting in this episode and for several episodes to come. That is the Mechanical Arts Program (MAP) at Greystone. Right from the start, we're going to want to clarify what we do and do not mean by mechanical arts, but that will become clear enough as we discuss and explain this fascinating, very old, and yet very timely way of looking at faithfulness, wisdom, and the call that we all have to thoughtful engagement with one another and with the world of God's creation and providence.For today’s Greystone Conversations episode, Dr. Mark A. Garcia is joined by Mr. Michael Sacasas and Mr. Joshua Klein, both fellows at Greystone who will be instrumental in the apprenticeship mode of the MAP.

It is trendy these days to be disruptive. Though it is a word that may seem to refer to a negative reality, “disruptive” is a word used in business, academic, and in many other contexts to refer to an upset that is needed and salutary. Is there a sense in which the concept and language of disruption may help the Church capture something important about her identity and nature, and how does the answer to this question inform who Greystone is and what Greystone is doing?Culturally, we live in a time when upsetting the status quo is appealing, exciting, and assumed to be necessary for the common good. We are all revolutionaries now, and revolution is the new normal. To the same extent, and probably for similar reasons, tradition, age, and established ways are unappealing, and pejoratively characterized in terms of sterility and stagnation. As you know well by now, Greystone shares neither of these assumptions and in fact labors quite explicitly against these trends in all that we do. Still, the concept of disruption does commend something to us regarding the Church and her place in the world that is both traditional and timely. In this episode of Greystone Conversations, we sit down once more with Pastor Jesse Crutchley of the Greystone Chesapeake Learning Community at Severn Run Evangelical Presbyterian Church (PCA), and we run the concept of disruption through the filter of the three elements of the order of reality: time, space, and vocation. This in turn sets up a frankly rather exciting moment in Greystone’s life as we are then able to announce a key degree program collaboration that we suspect many of our listeners will want to know about. For more on that announcement, you can chase your time with this episode with a heavy dose of our brand new website, greystoneinstitute.org.As we now sit down again with Pastor Crutchley, let us also thank you once again for spending some time with Greystone today to reflect together on the shape and direction of greater faithfulness to our triune God. Your prayers, support, and partnership truly mean a great deal to us and to the many we are honored to serve. Thank you.

The form of the Word belongs to the meaning of the Word, and this includes its providentially ordered literary presentation. How do the Church’s ways of dividing up the Scriptures inform the way the Church has heard and read the Scriptures?We at Greystone were very pleased to speak recently with Prof. Charles (Chuck) Hill, Professor Emeritus of New Testament and Early Christianity at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando. We’ve long benefitted from Professor Hill’s meticulous attention to matters of text and reception, and his exemplary standards of scholarship. He retired from his regular post at RTS in 2021 but thankfully continues to be quite active and productive, and you can see something of his prodigious output if you visit his faculty page at the RTS website. Professor Hill’s most recent book, called, The First Chapters: Dividing the Text of Scripture in Codex Vaticanus and Its Predecessors, published by Oxford in 2022, is the focus of today’s episode of Greystone Conversations.As the posted book description explains, Hill’s book, The First Chapters, uncovers the origins of the first paragraph or chapter divisions in copies of the Christian Scriptures. Its focal point is the magnificent, fourth-century Codex Vaticanus (Vat.gr. 1209; B 03), perhaps the single most significant ancient manuscript of the Bible, and the oldest material witness to what may be the earliest set of numbered chapter divisions of the Bible. The First Chapters tells the history of textual division, starting from when copies of Greek literary works used virtually no spaces, marks, or other graphic techniques to assist the reader. It explores the origins of other numbering systems, like the better-known Eusebian Canons, but its theme is the first set of numbered chapters in Codex Vaticanus, what nineteenth-century textual critic Samuel P. Tregelles labelled the Capitulatio Vaticana. It demonstrates that these numbers were not, as most have claimed, late additions to the codex but belonged integrally to its original production. The First Chaptersthen breaks new ground by showing that the Capitulatio Vaticana has real precursors in some much earlier manuscripts. It thus casts light on a long, continuous tradition of scribally-placed, visual guides to the reading and interpreting of Scriptural books. Finally, The First Chapters exposes abundant new evidence that this early system for marking the sense-divisions of Scripture has played a much greater role in the history of exegesis than has previously been imaginable.In other words, these markings have hermeneutical, and thus theological significance.

Today we reflect on death, courage, and eschatology. Death and eschatology are often connected, of course, but courage takes its shape in relation to both of them. The questions that may elucidate the relationship could be put this way: How do my occasional experiences of great loss or of major life changes help prepare me for my death? Where is courage in that picture? And is there a relationship between (1) eschatologies that emphasize continuities between the present order and the future, consummated order and (2) the domestication of death (as the minimization of the radical and mysterious change that awaits us in it). Might the domestication of death relate to a lack of courage as well?After a lengthy hiatus, Greystone Conversations is back! The reasons for that hiatus will soon be made public, our Lord willing, and if they are then we think you’ll be encouraged that the radio silence of our podcast has been a result of necessary labor in other directions, which we pray will yield great fruit for the Lord and his Church. We look forward to announcing those updates soon, but until then we are excited to roll out a few new podcast episodes recorded during this interval. In these conversations, we had the great pleasure of speaking with two truly fascinating and helpful guests who are leading scholars in theology and biblical studies: Drs. Matthew Levering and Charles (Chuck) Hill, and we will also have Pastor Jesse Crutchley on the podcast again to talk about Greystone’s theological vision and mission in relation to the concept of disruptive economies. In today’s episode, Dr. Mark Garcia, President and Fellow in Scripture and Theology at Greystone Theological Institute, speaks with Dr. Levering about a difficult yet increasingly explored topic: death. Drawing from his own personal experience as well as the long virtues tradition of Christian ethics, Dr. Matthew Levering has put together a collection of essays that use death as a foil for unpacking and exploring the content of the virtues, and sometimes with rather surprising results. The book is called, Dying and the Virtues, and the theme we were most interested in was the theme of courage with which Dr. Levering closes his book. Courage in the face of death, he suggests, is required not only at the time of death, but also in the midst of the many times God providentially leads us through the experiences of significant loss or significant change—providential experiences in which we can say, in fact, that God is preparing us for the greatest transition of all death. Personally I have to say I have found that simple observation deeply moving, profound, and challenging, and it has come to mind many times since I first read Dr. Levering’s relatively brief discussion of it. Listen in as we discuss this idea with Dr. Levering.

What is the form and dynamic of faithful ministry and theology in a contested time? And in what ways might those with Reformed Anglican sympathies appreciate and capitalize upon the very best of that tradition without falling for Anglo-catholicism? Perhaps surprisingly, both of these questions come together in one figure: the famous Archbishop of Armaugh, James Ussher.On 30 October at Greystone Cardiff and online, Greystone is hosting a special lecture series event called "Theological Ministry in a Contested World: James Ussher as Reformed Churchman," with Dr. Harrison Perkins, scholar of early modern Reformed theology and minister at London City Presbyterian Church in London. You can find out more about this event and register for it at Greystone’s website, greystoneinstitute.org   Dr. Garcia had the pleasure of talking with Dr. Perkins recently about his upcoming talks at Greystone Cardiff, about an exciting translated and edited collection of some hitherto unpublished works by Ussher forthcoming from Westminster Seminary Press, and about Ussher’s perhaps surprising relevance and importance in our day. As Ussher in particular and Reformed Anglicanism in general are enjoying a revival of serious interest among confessional Reformed Christians, surefooted and clear-sighted guidance into this giant of the Reformed tradition is very welcome, and Dr. Perkins provides just that.

How should we understand the psalmists who teach that God tests the kidneys and the heart? Who make much of our eyes, ears, and more, in an overtly spiritual and theological way? What is the anatomy of the soul according to the Psalms, which, it has been said, provides an organ recital of the ways of God’s relationship with people?Today’s episode is quite different from our usual offerings. Last month Greystone enjoyed a special time of fellowship, of new and renewed friendships, and of prayer and encouragement in the context of a long-overdue Greystone support event. On this joyous occasion, we reviewed various ways in which the Lord has so conspicuously and movingly blessed Greystone’s work in the last two years, despite the pandemic context in which our work, and everyone else’s, has needed to be rethought and redeployed.We also spent some time listening to various people in the Greystone network who wanted to share how the Institute has proven to be a key part of their own work, ministries, even their lives. (You can see the videos of these testimonials at our website.) Truly it was, and still is, humbling yet exciting to learn from friends, students, and fellow scholars in the growing Greystone network of specific ways Greystone is helping to provide important resources and direction for the Reformed tradition and ministry throughout the world.We also enjoyed a terrific concert from New Song, the choral group of Geneva College, and a stimulating, edifying talk by Dr. Byron Curtis, a professor of biblical studies at Geneva and Fellow of Old Testament at Greystone. Dr. Curtis explored the often bewildering yet wonderfully rich anthropological imagery of the psalms, and the reasons they are important for us to hear well. His lecture was very well received and, combined with the exquisite food and wine and song, ensured a time of great joy and celebration.With that encouragement, and facing new opportunities for service to the Church, this support event was organized to help marshal the resources of God’s people in support of these endeavors. And we are profoundly grateful for how the Lord blessed Greystone that night. However, we also learned of many who wanted to attend but were unable to do so, and this started a conversation about how to provide an opportunity for our global network to give in support of Greystone. Today’s podcast episode is the recording of Dr. Curtis’ talk given at our support event, and we would like to ask you to listen, to enjoy it, and to regard it as our appeal to you to consider becoming a regular supporter of Greystone. One-time or monthly gifts of any amount are absolutely key to our work, and we depend quite heavily on your partnership. Would you consider going to greystoneinstitute.org/donate today, maybe even right now, and giving the equivalent of maybe one cup of coffee, or one paperback book, or more, to help Greystone forward? We are truly grateful for you and for your support in this way.

There is a beautiful mystery in the fact that we often think of certain novels and poems in terms of our experiences at the time we first read them. This is both appropriate and fascinating, especially when second and third readings of the same literature yield further layers of our experiences with them. We are reminded, then, that we are biographical creatures, storied creatures, and that stories, poems, and sagas do not only entertain us; they help to articulate and explain us. Today in August of 2021 the writer Walt Wangerin Jr. has just recently died. Wangerin, a Lutheran storyteller who received many of literature’s highest awards, is best known for a series of fantasy books situated in a most unusual world—a farm that intersects with the meaning, the dangers, and the promises of everything.The first book in the series is called The Book of the Dun Cow. Dr. Garcia first read it at the recommendation of Jonathan Stark, his friend, a longtime teacher, and a ruling elder at Immanuel, the Presbyterian congregation Dr. Garcia served as pastor. He couldn’t help but read this story as one nearly consumed with his own experiences of horror and pain in a very difficult time of pastoral labor. Nor could Wangerin, it turns out. Perhaps this is why this book has been precious to Dr. Garcia ever since, and yet it remains a compelling and worthwhile book in its own right, quite apart from ways this biographical sketch may or may not prove to disclose. But then, perhaps we should not hesitate to notice such things either, if our stories partake, purposefully, of the features of the story of everything precisely so we can be sure of the Creator’s purposes at work in his creation.Despite its apparently comical setting (talking animals and the like), The Book of the Dun Cow is a profoundly serious book and--as Jonathan and Dr. Garcia both agree in today’s conversation--it is not to be confused with a children’s book. In its seriousness, though, it is also refreshing. It does better justice to the realities of sin, evil, and pain than so much of what the world offers—indeed, than the Church sometimes offer. This alone commands our attention.At long last, then, Greystone Conversations was pleased to sit with Jonathan Stark to talk a bit about one of our favorite topics: Wangerin’s The Book of the Dun Cow. Thank you for sitting with us to listen in. We hope you will consider reading the book yourselves, of course, but would be quite content if we are all reminded by this story that the real world is more fantastic—in the literal sense of the word—than we could possibly imagine in our largely disenchanted age, and that good writing reminds us, even urgently, of reality’s enchantment.

One way in which the biblical-theological work of Geerhardus Vos in the late 19th and early 20th century differed from what then and since has been called biblical theology was Vos’s commitment to the vertical dimension of history and revelation in relationship: by the vertical we mean that revelation is not limited to, exhausted by, or even primarily focused on the horizontal, historical, sequential elements of before/after, promise/fulfillment, and versions of typology that can be reduced to such concerns. Instead, at every point God’s revelation in and through history is related to, in fact anchored by and in, the triune God, Father, Son, and Spirit, the realities of heavenly and glorious life and fellowship within the trinity and the economic purpose of that triune God to glorify the Son in the Spirit by way of his Church. That “vertical” reality is primary; history is explained by it, not the other way around.Ironically, a purely horizontal approach can confuse the idea of “fulfillment” with displacement, and the Son of God’s relationship, personally, to the OT (and its people) becomes at least a strained and weak thing. Unfortunately, the horizontal model continues to be the most familiar and conventional way of thinking about biblical theology, the relation of the two testaments, Christ and the OT, and so on, even among some who would claim to work self-consciously in the wake of Vos’s proposals. Since Vos, a great deal of excellent work has been done in the history and theological nature of Scripture and its reading, and much of it can advance insights Vos commended to our attention. Advancing those insights, and doing so in conversation with other voices in biblical, historical, and theological scholarship will require sustained consideration of the effect of the vertical upon our understanding of Christ himself and the relationship of Church in Christ to all of Holy Scripture. And this is a wonderful thing to learn and to pursue. In today’s episode, we even suggest that the lowly lint-roller – yes, a lint-roller — might help us avoid the errors of the before/after, promise/fulfillment model in favor a more conspicuously Christian practice of Scriptural reading.To discuss this and more, we are pleased to welcome back once again friend and minister of Word and sacrament, Pastor Jesse Crutchley, pastor of Severn Run Evangelical Presbyterian Church, a PCA congregation in Millersville, MD, and member of Greystone’s ministerial council.To purchase a Greystone “Never Just Passing Through” t-shirt or mug, email info@greystoneinstitute.org

Is there a Christian reading of Proverbs, and of Proverbs 31 in particular, that is both determined by Christ and also materially relevant, even constitutive, for personal, familial, communal, and ecclesial wisdom? Is that reading coherent with Scripture as a whole in such a way as to be prompted by it?The Book of Proverbs has notoriously suffered at the hands of moralists who reduce its message to a range of maxims printable on your favorite mug or t-shirt or framed and placed on your sitting room wall. But it has also arguably suffered at the hands of those who, in reaction to that moralistic misuse of the Book, reduce its testimony to a Christ who fulfills Proverbs by, as it were, doing away with it. This not only blunts the force of the Proverbs, refusing its continuing witness to Christ and to our life in him; it also evidences confusion on what typology, figuration, promise/fulfillment, and biblical theology, etc. really mean. It ends up emptying the proper and important morals with the moralism. It mutes the ethical content of Christ’s work and world—to which we belong by faith—in the quest to be, we think, “Christological” readers rather than legalistic ones.Is there a better way? And how might that better way disclose rich features of that most abused of Proverbs passages—Proverbs 31—in a time when we need to hear again, or perhaps for the first time, how Proverbs, and all of Scripture, speaks about gender, domestic relations, ordered reality, and the like?

What do Reformed Christians mean today when they refer to limited atonement or particular redemption? Is it the same idea that has prevailed in the Reformed tradition historically and confessionally? Are there different Reformed ways of understanding and affirming the truth that God in Christ saves his people by his obedience and sacrifice?It is always difficult to discover that what we first learn about something doesn’t quite fit the reality of the thing on closer inspection. The difficulty is often less theological and intellectual than emotional and psychological. This is true for many Reformed Christians who converted to the Reformed tradition of faith and worship by way of the many influential popular presentations of Reformed theology, often connected in some way with popular conferences and personalities. It can be jarring to discover, as some do eventually, that the so-called five points of Calvinism are not really a summary of the Reformed theology of anything, including salvation, and were never intended to be. It can also prove eye-opening to learn that most of the key distinctives of the Reformed theological tradition aren’t unique to the Reformed at all but reach far back into the deep Christian tradition shared by other Christians and of which the Reformed fathers insisted the Reformed tradition was but one--though the most faithful--expression. But learning the real history and theology of the Reformed tradition is important, not only to represent it correctly in conversations and in preaching, but also to ensure that our quest to advance and build the Reformed theological tradition is advancing and building something that really does exist.The nature and purpose of the atonement is one doctrine that has enjoyed a close reexamination in terms of the actual texts, events, and figures of the critically important 16th and 17th century periods of rapid theological development and of confessionalization. This includes the reconsideration of the often misunderstood language of limited atonement, and the also often misunderstood or mischaracterized teaching of a remarkably capable Reformed theologian named John Davenant, the famous Bishop of Salisbury and prodigious British scholar. Dr. Michael Lynch knows Davenant’s teaching on the atonement very well, and has just published a full monograph on the topic with Oxford University Press called John Davenant’s Hypothetical Universalism: A Defense of Catholic and Reformed Orthodoxy. Whatever your own view of the matter, if you thought John Owen’s teaching on the atonement was or is the only Reformed way of saying things, or if you thought Peter Lombard was a medieval hair-splitter with no relevance to contemporary theology on the person and work of Christ, or if you thought the diversity of the Reformed tradition was a problem remedied by the confessions, you’ll appreciate what you learn in Dr. Lynch’s book and also find my conversation with him in this episode quite interesting.Please remember, too, that we in the midst of a major push for support as we seek to take the next steps in our development and fund our operations for the coming days. Your gift at our website, however small or great, is a terrific help to that end.