Saturday morning a Roman Catholic laywoman and a male companion (who stood behind her with his rosary saying prayers) came to my door on behalf of St Mary Church in Escondido. She asked if there were any Catholics in the house. I . . . Continue reading →
Part 1 Before we can see how and why our elders need to be confessional we needed to understand, in the first place, what an elder is. Next, we need to understand what it means to be “confessional” and then, in the . . . Continue reading →
2012 was the 450th anniversary of the Belgic Confession. The Belgic was written by Guy (or Guido) de Bres (1522–67), a French-speaking Reformed from the southern Netherlands who was martyred for the gospel. He modeled the Belgic after the French (Gallic) Confession . . . Continue reading →
The good folks at Reformation Heritage Books were kind enough to send me a copy of William Boekstein’s latest, The Glory of Grace: The story of the Canons of Dort. Handsomely illustrated by Evan Hughes and published with a child-sized hardcover and . . . Continue reading →
Usually in a conference there is a period of time set aside for questions and answers (Q&A). It’s a good practice because it gives an indication of what people heard and indicates where things might need to be clarified. It also gives . . . Continue reading →
The audio from the Central Valley Conference on Reformed Theology at Zion Reformed Church in Ripon, California is online now (below). Thanks to Pastors Kevin Efflandt and Angelo Contreras and to everyone at Zion for their hard work in preparing for the . . . Continue reading →
Dennis Johnson is back in the studio for Office Hours to discuss Hebrews 2:1–13. Dennis is Professor of Practical Theology at Westminster Seminary California. In this episode Dennis and I discussed the what it means to have a true human mediator representing believers . . . Continue reading →
Wisdom from Escondido URC pastor Chris Gordon: The peril of self-promotion in the Christian ministry is nothing new. Jesus himself had to deal with this problem on numerous occasions in his own disciples. The Son of God became a servant to seek . . . Continue reading →
In the previous post I tried to give some context to the claim that the USA is a “Christian” nation. There are ways in which that adjective is accurate and important ways in which it is not. Sometimes, however, when folk call . . . Continue reading →
Humans seem to be naturally drawn to niceness. Niceness is comfortable. To be nice is to be pleasant in manner, to be agreeable, to adhere to social conventions. We like to be around people who are nice at least in large part . . . Continue reading →
Every four years (and in the interim) the question of whether we should regard the USA as a “Christian” nation re-emerges. There are three ways in which this question might be considered, sociologically, historically, and biblically-theologically. Under each rubric the case for . . . Continue reading →
Chris Castaldo (HT: Justin Taylor) takes issue with R. C. Sproul’s claim: The indisputable fact is that Rome made a number of strong, clear theological affirmations at the Council of Trent. Because Trent was an ecumenical council, it had all the weight . . . Continue reading →