Archive
Papers
Every study published on TrueBride.org, in reverse order of publication. Written to be read slowly.
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Earthly Marriage as the Living Example of Intimate Commitment
Read More → : Earthly Marriage as the Living Example of Intimate CommitmentThesis God designed earthly marriage to be a living, visible demonstration of intimate, exclusive, covenant commitment. He did this so that human beings, who live in physical bodies and understand physical relationships, could grasp the nature of the spiritual relationship He desires with His people. The one-flesh union, with its exclusivity, permanence, vulnerability, and costly…
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Covenant Theology and the Fidelity of the Bride
Read More → : Covenant Theology and the Fidelity of the BrideThesis Covenant Theology rightly recovers the unity of God’s redemptive purpose across the Testaments and guards against the fragmentation of Scripture into disconnected dispensations. Yet when any particular covenantal system becomes the primary lens through which the Bride reads her relationship with Christ, it risks becoming a form of spiritual bigamy. The pure Bride is…
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Killing, Violence, and the Logic of the Bridegroom
Read More → : Killing, Violence, and the Logic of the BridegroomThesis The Bridegroom conquered by being slain, not by killing. When the Church justifies, blesses, or participates in killing and violence in the name of Christ, she adopts a logic foreign to her Husband and commits a form of spiritual bigamy—aligning herself with the power methods of the world rather than with the cross-shaped way…
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Pelagianism, Augustinianism, and the Fidelity of the Bride
Read More → : Pelagianism, Augustinianism, and the Fidelity of the BrideThesis The Pelagian controversy and the strong Augustinian response that followed exposed two opposite dangers that continue to threaten the Bride. Pelagianism so stressed human free will and moral ability that the Bride’s own strength threatened to become a rival to the Bridegroom’s grace. Extreme Augustinianism so stressed the bondage of the will and sovereign…
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The Pelagian Controversy and the Fidelity of the Bride
Read More → : The Pelagian Controversy and the Fidelity of the BrideThesis The Pelagian controversy of the early fifth century exposed two opposite dangers that still threaten the Bride. Pelagius so emphasized human free will and moral ability that grace became largely unnecessary for obedience. The strong Augustinian reaction so emphasized the bondage of the will and the necessity of sovereign grace that genuine human response…
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Dispensationalism and the Rise of Christian Zionism A Counting the Cost Companion to “Christian Zionism and the Fidelity of the Bride”
Read More → : Dispensationalism and the Rise of Christian Zionism A Counting the Cost Companion to “Christian Zionism and the Fidelity of the Bride”Thesis Christian Zionism did not arise from the apostolic or Ante-Nicene reading of Scripture. It rests primarily on a 19th-century system called dispensationalism, developed by John Nelson Darby and popularized through the Scofield Reference Bible and later American evangelical institutions. That system introduced a sharp separation between Israel and the Church, treated the Church age…
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Supersessionism, Fulfillment, and the Fidelity of the Bride A Counting the Cost Companion to “Christian Zionism and the Fidelity of the Bride”
Read More → : Supersessionism, Fulfillment, and the Fidelity of the Bride A Counting the Cost Companion to “Christian Zionism and the Fidelity of the Bride”Thesis The charge of “replacement theology” or “supersessionism” is frequently used to dismiss any view that sees the multi-ethnic Church as the fulfillment of God’s purpose rather than a temporary parenthesis beside national Israel. Yet the New Testament and the Ante-Nicene writers consistently taught that the old national and temple order has been fulfilled in…
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Christian Zionism and the Fidelity of the Bride
Read More → : Christian Zionism and the Fidelity of the BrideThesis Christian Zionism claims to be a faithful expression of the biblical worldview. In reality, it introduces a competing center of loyalty that divides the heart of the Bride. By treating the modern nation-state of Israel and the ethnic Jewish people as possessing an ongoing, central covenantal status alongside or even above the multi-ethnic Church,…
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Once Saved, Always Saved and the Fidelity of the Bride
Read More → : Once Saved, Always Saved and the Fidelity of the BrideThesis The popular Protestant teaching often summarized as “once saved, always saved” (or the Calvinist doctrine of the perseverance of the saints, which has roots in Augustine in the 5th century and was systematized in the Reformed tradition of the 16th century) claims that a person who has truly been regenerated can never finally fall…
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Calvinism and the Fidelity of the Bride
Read More → : Calvinism and the Fidelity of the BrideThesis Calvinism recovered important truths about the sovereignty of God, the seriousness of sin, and the necessity of grace. Yet when its distinctive system—centered on the eternal decrees, TULIP, total inability, and the doctrine of inevitable perseverance—becomes the primary lens through which the Bride reads Scripture and understands her relationship to Christ, it risks becoming…
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