In the October, 2019 issue of Ordained Servant is an introduction to the Canons of Dort, “The Synod of Dort: Keeping Venom From the Lips.” It is also available in print. Here’s just a bit with a link to the rest. Continue reading →
At the 1518 Heidelberg Disputation (academic presentation), Martin Luther (1483–1546), the father of the Protestant Reformation, as he was coming to his Protestant convictions, argued: “One is not worthy to be called a theologian who looks upon the ‘invisible things of God’ . . . Continue reading →
Objection 4. Faith does not justify without that which is required in those who are justified. Good works are required in those who are justified. Therefore, faith is not without good works, and so does not justify alone. Answer: There is here . . . Continue reading →
Now, such were the innovations of the late hierarchists. In worship, their paintings, crossings, crucifixes, bowings, cringings, altars, tapers, wafers, organs, anthems, litany, rails, images, copes, vestments,—what were they but Roman varnish, an Italian dress for our devotion, to draw on conformity . . . Continue reading →
A recent tweet from Union Theological Seminary in New York City indicates that the institution, which once boasted luminaries of the intellectual stature of Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Tillich, is now encouraging an innovative penitential practice: confessing sins to plants. To quote . . . Continue reading →
Chris and I have been working on the book of Romans for a while. We took a hiatus for the summer but we are back at it. We recorded two episodes today finishing Romans 7 and moving into chapter 8. They will . . . Continue reading →
Carson King is a 23-year old Des Moines man who held up a sign at a televised college football game announcing, “Busch Lite supply needs replenished.” It was a joke but people began sending him money via the Venmo appl. When he . . . Continue reading →
The Reformation Still Matters Sometimes when we talk about the Reformation we give or receive the impression that it was purely a historical event with no continuing relevance or even that Reformation is one thing and mission is another. Here is an . . . Continue reading →
The Problem Of Antinomianism Repeatedly in the history of Christianity there have been two competing, damaging impulses regarding the moral law of God. One of those impulses is known as “antinomianism.” This view denies the abiding validity of the moral law for . . . Continue reading →
At the 1518 Heidelberg Disputation (academic presentation), Martin Luther (1483–1546), the father of the Protestant Reformation, as he was coming to his Protestant convictions, argued: “One is not worthy to be called a theologian who looks upon the ‘invisible things of God’ . . . Continue reading →
Saints and Sinners is a podcast led by Pastor Ken Jones, a voice familiar to long-time listeners of the White Horse Inn. S&S features Pastors David Menendez, Jose Prado, and Aldo Leon, each of whom serves a congregation in the Miami metro. In . . . Continue reading →
The late Reformation era slogan semper Reformanda has been often abused. It is often taken to mean that we need to get rid of basic Reformation convictions, e.g., sola Scriptura, the doctrine that Holy Scripture is sufficient for Christian faith and practice. What it . . . Continue reading →
Like a lot of American evangelicals, the faith I was taught as a teen-aged convert was a sort of Dispensationalism. There were no charts that I recall but I did learn that Jews are God’s earthly people and that the church is . . . Continue reading →
Saints and Sinners is a podcast led by Pastor Ken Jones, a voice familiar to long-time listeners of the White Horse Inn. S&S features Pastors David Menendez, Jose Prado, and Aldo Leon, each of whom serves a congregation in the Miami metro. In . . . Continue reading →
We are in the midst of a large and important discussion, in the confessional Presbyterian and Reformed world, about nature, grace, sin, human sexuality, the doctrine of humanity (theological anthropology). The presenting issue, as the physicians say, is the claim that there . . . Continue reading →
The doctrine of union with Christ is an essential part of the Reformed doctrine of the application of salvation to the elect by the Holy Spirit (ordo salutis). In the Westminster Shorter Catechism, Presbyterian Churches say: Q. 30. How doth the Spirit . . . Continue reading →
David Brooks published an opinion piece in the New York Timeson 5 September (2019), in the voice of one of the apparently many angry, bitter, lonely folks who view the world principally through their screen of their phone or computer. He captures . . . Continue reading →
One of the first and greatest differences between the Augustinian understanding of Paul and what became the dominant understanding of Paul. By the 7th century and for most of a millennium following, the parable of the Good Samaritan (Mark 10:29–37) became the . . . Continue reading →
Recently I talked with Matthew and Onnig of the Back to the Reformation podcast about the value of the Reformation for contemporary evangelical churches, about what biblicism is (hint: it does not mean “to be biblical”), about American religious history and the . . . Continue reading →