Jared Lovell is a deacon in the Reformed Episcopal Church serving Grace RE Church in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Jared is a classical educator, teaching European and American history at Memoria Press Online Academy, and is a teaching fellow at the Wayside School.
A Study of the Evangelical Decline of the Burial Rites in the English and American Prayer Books The writer of Ecclesiastes tells us there is “a time for every purpose under the heaven,” which includes “a time to be born, and a time to die… a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a…
An Exegetical and Theological Study of Judah and Joseph The story of Joseph, as commonly told, is the kind of story that resonates with a modern western audience. An ambitious, young boy who has dreams of grandeur overcomes the obstacles of jealous older brothers, slavery, and imprisonment to become the second most powerful man in…
Identifying the People of God in the Theology of Paul Who are the people of God? While it is very clear in the Old Testament beginning in Genesis 12 that it is Abraham’s family that is chosen by God to become a great nation and a blessing to the nations, the picture becomes a little…
The Role of Natural Revelation in the Story of Cain and Abel It is difficult to overstate the profundity of the story of Cain and Abel that is told in the space of just a few verses in Genesis 4. With a strict economy of detail, we are told a story that is incredibly dark…
The Book of Exodus tells the story of God’s deliverance of His people out of bondage in Egypt and God’s deliverance of His law to those people through the mediatorship of Moses. These twin themes in Exodus are closely bound together showing that Israel was not only saved from a life of slavery but were…
Delighting in the Old Testament: Through Christ and for Christ. By Jason S. DeRouchie. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2024. 368 pp. $32.99 (hardcover). Several years ago, Baptist pastor and author Dr. John Piper responded to a question about whether he found the Federal Vision theology of Douglas Wilson to be a different gospel by saying, in…
In the previous article, I presented the problem of the divine sanction of violence in the Old Testament given the fact that Israel’s God repeatedly states that He hates violence. I then provided two arguments that serve to contextualize God’s commands or His seeming approval of violent acts committed by His people. First, violence occurs…
It was to some poor shepherds one night in a field outside of Bethlehem that a heavenly army of angels appeared delivering a message of “peace on earth, goodwill towards men.” The Prince of Peace had been born in a stable, wrapped in swaddling clothes, and laid in a manger. Contrary to the Marcionite dichotomy…
There may be no greater issue plaguing the church and impeding its witness today than its inconsistent and unclear teaching on the issue of divorce and remarriage. At first glance this might seem like an overstatement. However, if one considers the theological roots of this issue and how they branch out and underlie many other…
Beginning with the scientific revolution in the sixteenth century and continuing through the Enlightenment of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, that which was deemed knowable or worthy of being known, was limited to that which was empirically verifiable or rationally deducible from certain premises about the laws of nature. Outside of this narrow definition of…