Author Archives: Patrick O'Banion

Breaking Bread with Calvin and His Institutes

This article first appeared on The Gospel Coalition. In his recent book Breaking Bread with the Dead [read TGC’s review], Alan Jacobs offers advice for achieving a “more tranquil mind”—a thing devoutly to be wished. At the heart of the book is the following insight: the more substantially we’re in touch with the past, the more effectivelyContinue reading “Breaking Bread with Calvin and His Institutes”

Laying the Foundation… Twice

This article first appeared on the Heidelblog. Where do we begin in our theology? The answer may seem obvious: We begin with God. Theology, after all, is talking about God; that’s literally what the word means. But things get a little more complicated when we get around to developing a formal theological system.  Let meContinue reading “Laying the Foundation… Twice”

5 Lessons TLI’s Formal Team Learned during COVID

This article first appeared on the Training Leaders International website. In spring 2020, as the seminary that TLI’s Formal Team partners with in South Asia was gearing up for the final months of their academic year and preparing to graduate the first cohort of MDiv students, the COVID pandemic hit. The country’s borders immediately closedContinue reading “5 Lessons TLI’s Formal Team Learned during COVID”

WSCal Office Hours

Recently I was invited onto an episode of Office Hours, Westminster Seminary, California’s podcast to discuss my forthcoming translation of Zanchi’s The Spiritual Marriage between Christ and His Church and Every One of the Faithful. It was a good opportunity to connect with R. Scott Clark, my old Church History prof, and to talk talkContinue reading “WSCal Office Hours”

Praying for All Nations: The Reformation and the Psalms

How we understand the church’s missionary past has everything to do with how we will proclaim Christ to the nations right now. If the great theologians and practitioners of our ecclesiastical tradition—whoever they are—taught that our Lord had commissioned his church to share the gospel with all people, then we who live downstream of themContinue reading “Praying for All Nations: The Reformation and the Psalms”

Systematic Theology I: Covenant with Adam (Video 14)

Finally, we come to the end of this set of videos for the Systematic Theology I course. We end with a flourish, discussing the Adamic covenant of works established in Eden. This is a point of theology that has become increasingly compelling to me over the last few decades. What once seemed an interesting ifContinue reading “Systematic Theology I: Covenant with Adam (Video 14)”

Lessons Learned from Reading Calvin’s Institutes

It took nearly six months to make my way through the four books of John Calvin’s justly famous Institutes of the Christian Religion.1 Although I’d read substantial sections of it in seminary, I’d never tackled the whole thing from start to finish.  Too often, I finish one book and move onto the next one withoutContinue reading “Lessons Learned from Reading Calvin’s Institutes”

Systematic Theology I: The Image of God (Video 13)

We’re closing in on the end of this series of lectures from the Systematic Theology I course that I taught in S. Asia. It would have been most natural for my portion of the ST sequence to come to an end with the doctrine of God (or Theology Proper, as it’s called), but because ofContinue reading “Systematic Theology I: The Image of God (Video 13)”