Revival & Repentance: From Cluny to Simeon by Nick Needham

FROM TABLETALK | August 2010

In the ninth century, Christian civilization had almost been destroyed in western Europe by the Norse invasions. Unlike today’s benign neo-pagans, Vikings were ferocious, skull-cracking warriors who burnt down churches, slaughtered clergy and monks, and raped nuns. The tenth …Read More

Y1K by Keith Mathison

FROM TABLETALK | August 2010

As the end of the tenth century approached and the year 1000 loomed closer and closer, how did Christians react? Were they convinced that the end was near? Was there fear? Hope? A mixture of both? In the nineteenth century …Read More

The First Number by R.C. Sproul Jr.

FROM TABLETALK | August 2010

I am the father of eight children. As such, I receive more than my fair share of questions from children, many of which are repeats. That is, not only am I asked by my seven-yearold one day and my nine-year-old …Read More

Setting the Stage: The First Millennium by R.C. Sproul

FROM TABLETALK | August 2010

Volumes have been written giving detailed analyses of the extraordinary things that occurred in the first thousand years of church history, events that influenced everything that came after them. In this brief overview, I’m going to look at five …Read More

No Place for Heresy by C. FitzSimons Allison

FROM TABLETALK | August 2010

One of the best examples of reform is that which occurred at Cluny in the tenth century in southern France following the darkest times of the Western church after the fall of Rome (see Nick Needham’s article above for …Read More

High Crimes and Misdemeanors by Carl Trueman

FROM TABLETALK | August 2010

Some years ago I caused no little consternation when I was invited to speak at a church on the nature of ministry and started my lecture by declaring that it really did not matter if the pastor was an adulterer …Read More

The Lone Monk by Nick Needham

FROM TABLETALK | August 2007

The seventh century is something of a forgotten epoch for most Protestants. But it is well worth knowing. The creative heart of its theology lay in the East — the Byzantine Empire, centered on Constantinople. Here the Christological controversies of the …Read More

Bread and Circuses by R.C. Sproul Jr.

Our strategies are often rather far from God’s strategies. Indeed, the simple fact that we sit down to strategize may be a sure sign that we are far from God’s chosen path. We are plotters and planners, who …Read More

Columba: Missionary to Scotland by Sinclair Ferguson

FROM TABLETALK | August 2006

In reading the “lives of the saints” it is difficult to the point of impossibility to discover the unvarnished truth. That is certainly true in the case of Columba, or Columcille, the Irish missionary to the Scots and Picts in …Read More

Boethius: The Philosopher Theologian by Carl Trueman

FROM TABLETALK | August 2006

One of the least known but most significant Christian thinkers of antiquity was a sixth-century layman called Anicius Manlius Torquatus Severinus Boethius, or simply Boethius for short. The son of an old senatorial family, he lived between 480 and 524 …Read More

The Benedictine Rule by Andrew Hoffecker

FROM TABLETALK | August 2006

Ever since the New Testament epistles were written, Christians have received advice on how to live the Christian life. How much should we pray? What progress can we expect to make in achieving biblical holiness in this life? Is perfection …Read More

Gregory “the Great” by Tom Nettles

FROM TABLETALK | August 2006

A candid review of the accomplishments of Gregory, known as “the Great,” gives pause to an evangelical Protestant about such an exalted attribution. That he was a conservator of orthodoxy, an effective missiologist, and a zealous and clever churchman cannot …Read More

The Definition of Orthodoxy by Nick Needham

FROM TABLETALK | April 2006

The Arian controversy in the fourth century was arguably the greatest theological controversy in the history of the church. As Protestants, we might think that the Reformation controversies of the sixteenth century were the most momentous. Without wishing to minimize …Read More

Theology Has Consequences

FROM TABLETALK | April 2006

Richard Weaver first made a name for himself when he published his seminal work, Ideas Have Consequences. It is a brief work with ideas that are still reaping consequences. He was to the secular academic world something of a Francis …Read More

Confounding the Postmodern Mind by Gene Edward Veith

FROM TABLETALK | March 2006

Back in the last century, lots of churchmen were intimidated by modernism — with its triumphant science, dogmatic rationalism, and trust in progress. They figured that if Christianity is going to survive, it has to adapt to the times and to …Read More