First Post

Reformation Day is a fitting occasion to launch a resource devoted to the exposition of the Word and to bringing the biblical Christian worldview to bear on unbelief.

I hold to the Reformed Baptist confession – the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689 – and throughout this site I will both build on this understanding of Christian doctrine and defend it. In defending the faith I take the presuppositional approach to apologetics, which I also hope to write about, the Lord willing, and I use this approach both to assess my own convictions and interpretations critically and to evaluate and refute the philosophy of my opponents.

The name Slow Exposition has nothing to do with long exposures in photography. The exposition of Scripture, or expository preaching, is a style and method of communicating the truths of God's Word in which the text of Scripture receives the greatest attention and the Word holds its rightful central place. The text is read, studied and interpreted, and it issues in application to present-day life. Conclusions are preceded by exegesis – drawing out the meaning according to the author's intent, with attention to the usage of the original language, the cultural and historical setting of the text, the genre and context of the passage, and its place in the canon.

I make no claim to neutrality, since neutrality is a myth; plainly, every interpretation of a particular text both shapes and is shaped by the interpreter's reading of Scripture as a whole. In my own life of faith I have come to read Scripture in the light of covenant theology, from the standpoint of the 1689 Confession. I began my journey of faith in the Word of Faith movement and related charismatic circles, but after twelve years I reached a point of reassessment. Confessional Reformed Baptist theology and presuppositional apologetics are what I embraced as a result of that reassessment, yet I base neither the defense of my convictions nor my critique of the alternatives on my own or anyone else's anecdotal experience.

In my articles I will aim to cover both the exposition of Scripture and essays in systematic theology from a covenantal and confessional perspective, as well as apologetics, analyses of specific debates, and the presuppositions of Christian thought and of the thought of contemporary culture and society.

I will close this first post with one of the solas of the Reformation, which declares that God alone is worthy of all glory:

Soli Deo Gloria!