Thank you for reading the HB this year. You were one of over 200,000 people who read the Heidelblog in 2015. There were over 600,000 downloads. Like last year, most readers get here via Twitter, Facebook, The Aquila Report, Feedly, and Monergism.com. . . . Continue reading →
2015 Archive
Three Things I Learned In 2015
For me it has been an odd year. I spent a good bit of it on the road between San Diego, where I live and work, and Nebraska, where family lives. That has produced a greater sense of dislocation than usual. Professionally, . . . Continue reading →
Calvin Against Continuing, Extra-Biblical Revelation
Furthermore, those who, having forsaken Scripture, imagine some way or other of reaching God, ought to be thought of as not so much gripped by error as carried away with frenzy. For of late, certain giddy men have arisen who, with great . . . Continue reading →
Office Hours: The Holy Spirit In The First Five Books Of Scripture
The Holy Spirit has sometimes been called the forgotten person of the Trinity. Yet he appears at the very beginning of the Biblical story. Genesis 1:2 says, “The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the . . . Continue reading →
Strangers And Aliens (12d): Servants Imitating The Suffering Savior (1 Peter 2:18–25)
His suffering was an example to us but it was more than that. It was substitutionary. Jesus suffered in the place of those whom he came to save. He paid the debt owed by all his people, a debt they owed but could never pay. Further, because, by grace alone, through faith alone, by the Holy Spirit, we are united to Christ in his death, we have been separated from from sin. Continue reading →
Trueman: Why Churches And Institutions Go Bad
In my experience, churches, institutions and organizations do not go bad because of coups by liberals. They go bad because otherwise orthodox people sit on their hands – hands of whose cleanness they are always so very proud, yet hands which are . . . Continue reading →
The Fluid Line Between Revivalism And The Cults In Nineteenth-Century American Religion
To most Millerites, Ellen’s visions were simply another manifestation of the unfortunate religious drift of the times toward “fanaticism.” Early 19th-century America abounded with”prophets” of every description, from little-known frontier seers in Ellen Harmon’s own Methodist Church to prominent sectarian leaders. Mother . . . Continue reading →
Strangers And Aliens (12c): Servants Imitating The Suffering Savior (1 Peter 2:18–25)
18Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the unjust. 19For this is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. 20For what credit is it . . . Continue reading →
Beza On Saints’ Days, The Christian Sabbath, And Festivals
We say that it is a superstition to esteem one day more holy than another, or to think that to abstain from labour is something which, in itself, pleases God (Rom 14:5, 6; Col 2:16, 17). But, following what the Lord has . . . Continue reading →
Presbyterian And Reformed Ambivalence About Christmas
The Christmas season is nearing its climax. As the shopping ebbs and the work schedule slows a bit (for some anyway—remember in your prayers your local police and firefighters as this can be a difficult time for them) it gives us opportunity . . . Continue reading →
Taking Notes By Hand Is Better
What drives this paradoxical finding? Mueller and Oppenheimer postulate that taking notes by hand requires different types of cognitive processing than taking notes on a laptop, and these different processes have consequences for learning. Writing by hand is slower and more cumbersome . . . Continue reading →
The First Book Of Discipline (1560) On Holy Days
The word of God only, which is the New and Old Testament, shall be taught in every kirk within this realm; and all contrary doctrine to the same shall be impugned and utterly suppressed. We affirm that to be contrary doctrine to . . . Continue reading →
Good On Early Reformed Worship
The Reformed in many places closed organs, and introduced the singing of the psalms into the churches. Many of the old hymn books contained nothing but psalms, although others added hymns to the psalms. But the psalms constituted the basis and centre . . . Continue reading →
Aquinas On Islam
…those who founded sects committed to erroneous doctrines proceeded in a way that is opposite to this, The point is clear in the case of Muhammad. He seduced the people by promises of carnal pleasure to which the concupiscence of the flesh . . . Continue reading →
Calvin: Do Christians And Muslims Worship The Same God?
What A Difference Christ The Mediator Makes
For this reason I subscribe to the common saying that God is the object of faith, yet it requires qualification. Continue reading →
The Cruelty Of Nominalism
Are Symbols Arbitrary? Recently there has been considerable controversy generated in a university classroom where the prof required students to create a sign with the word “Jesus” on it and then to step on the same. One student, a Mormon, refused and was . . . Continue reading →
The John Owen Society In Oxford, UK
The John Owen Society is pleased to announce its inaugural lecture on 25th January 2016. Rev. Dr. Lee Gatiss (Director, Church Society) will speak on “The English Calvin? The Life and Legacy of John Owen.” The setting for our first event is . . . Continue reading →
Turretin On The Threefold Distinction In The Mosaic Law
I. The law given by Moses is usually distinguished into three species: moral (treating of morals or of perpetual duties towards God and our neighbor); ceremonial (of the ceremonies or rites about the sacred things to be observed under the Old Testament); . . . Continue reading →
Jesus And Allah: Do Christians And Muslims Worship The Same God?
Larycia Hawkins, an associate professor of political science, who studies and teaches courses on the intersection of religion and politics at a leading evangelical college in the USA, has created controversy in two ways: first, by wearing the Muslim hijab, as a . . . Continue reading →
The Reformed Pubcast: Vade Mecum Toward The Reformation
Les and Tanner host the popular Reformed Pubcast and they decided to put the whole enterprise at risk once again by including me in episode 103. We discussed, among other things, the definition of the adjective Reformed and the nature and role . . . Continue reading →