About Harrison Perkins

Harrison Perkins (PhD, Queen’s University Belfast; MDiv, Westminster Seminary California) is pastor of Oakland Hills Community Church (OPC), a member of the of the Heidelberg Reformation Association, a Senior Research Fellow at the Craig Center for the Study of the Westminster Standards, associate online instructor in church history at Westminster Theological Seminary, a visiting lecturer in systematic theology at Edinburgh Theological Seminary, and author of Reformed Covenant Theology: A Systematic Introduction. Meet all the Heidelberg contributors»

Keep Yourselves In God’s Love—Jude’s Epistle (Part 1)

Introduction

Most Christians probably know that Jude’s epistle is in the New Testament. Many know that it comes directly before the book of Revelation. Some have read it. A few have studied it carefully. For a long time, Jude’s epistle was basically ignored . . . Continue reading →

A Response to Brent E. Parker and Richard J. Lucas (eds.), Covenantal and Dispensational Theologies: Four Views on the Continuity of Scripture (Part 3)

This is the final installment of a three-part review of Brent Parker and Richard Lucas’ new volume of essays wherein theologians representing traditional Reformed covenant theology, progressive covenantalism, progressive dispensationalism, and traditional dispensationalism interact on issues of continuity and discontinuity in redemptive . . . Continue reading →

A Response to Brent E. Parker and Richard J. Lucas (eds.), Covenantal and Dispensational Theologies: Four Views on the Continuity of Scripture (Part 2)

This three-part series reviews the new multi-view collection of essays, edited by Richard Lucas and Brent Parker, concerning the unity of redemptive history as expressed in various forms of covenantal and dispensational theologies. Part one considered Michael Horton’s argument for traditional Reformed . . . Continue reading →

A Response to Brent E. Parker and Richard J. Lucas (eds.), Covenantal and Dispensational Theologies: Four Views on the Continuity of Scripture (Part 1)

At my ordination, I took a vow that I hold the Westminster Standards “as containing the system of doctrine taught in the Holy Scriptures,” expressing that these documents summarize the shape of biblical truth most accurately. This “system” of doctrine connects various . . . Continue reading →

Review: Bully Pulpit: Confronting the Problem of Spiritual Abuse in the Church by Michael J. Kruger

Michael Kruger has written a gem of a book, addressing one of the most prominent issues troubling the church today. Increasingly, we are faced with stories about pastors who misuse their position of authority to achieve their own selfish ends to the . . . Continue reading →

Review: Petrus van Mastricht’s Theoretical-Practical Theology Volume 3: The Works of God and the Fall of Man

Although it is bad practice to believe in golden ages in the absolute sense, the present is certainly a high point for the church in the specific sense of the English-speaking world gaining increasing access to rich material from Protestant Orthodoxy that . . . Continue reading →

Resources On The Means Of Grace

Over the last few years, I have given increased thought toward God’s ordinary means of grace. That designation itself is worth reflection, by which I have recently come to be thoroughly amazed. First, the means are God’s. They belong to him and . . . Continue reading →

Review: Todd Hains, Martin Luther and the Rule of Faith: Reading God’s Word for God’s People

Not long ago, Reformed circles found it fashionable to criticize those on the other side of our intramural debates as being too Lutheran. If being too Lutheran means thinking anything like Todd Hains and reading Scripture with the care and purpose for . . . Continue reading →

Review of Brian Brock’s Wondrously Wounded: Theology, Disability, and the Body of Christ

Churches in the modern world must increasingly realize that we have to reckon with difficult issues involving mental wellbeing, disability, and related concerns. As a pastor in London, one of the world’s largest urban centers where there were fewer ways even just . . . Continue reading →

We Are Not Professionals But Ought To Be True Confessionals

I recently wrote a book review about a volume by an author whose works usually prompt me to significant disagreement, but, in this case, whether because of a change of his mind or coincidence of the material, I found that I generally . . . Continue reading →

Engaging Confessional Baptists on Covenant Theology (Part 2): Unity of Salvation in the Old and New Testaments

This two-part series engages recent confessional Baptist publications on the nature of covenant theology in order to help Reformed readers understand the Baptistic view better and to have some starting points for responding to it. Part one looked at new developments in . . . Continue reading →

Engaging Confessional Baptists on Covenant Theology (Part 1): Typology

The elephant in the room of any discussion about the development of redemptive history is the disagreement between Baptist and Reformed theologies about the unity of the covenant of grace, including the whole language of the covenant’s substance and administration. Continue reading →

Review of Richard B. Gaffin Jr. In the Fullness of Time: An Introduction to the Biblical Theology of Acts and Paul

Dr. Richard Gaffin, professor emeritus of biblical and systematic theology at Westminster Theological Seminary (Philadelphia), is famous for his emphasis on redemptive history and the historia salutis, or the factors concerning Christ’s once-for-all accomplishment of redemption. Claiming the legacy of Geerhardus Vos . . . Continue reading →

Twits, Scholars, And Thoughts On Theological Discussion: Thanks To Adonis Vidu

When I finished reading Adonis Vidu’s excellent new book on the divine missions to review it for the Heidelblog, I set a goal to interact with what I found most useful in the book. Rather that using the generic review tactic of . . . Continue reading →

Reconciling the Divine Processions-Missions Relationship with Confessional Reformed Theology: An Engagement with Adonis Vidu’s The Divine Missions: An Introduction (Part 4)

This series considers Adonis Vidu’s new book about relating a classical theology proper to God’s plan of salvation. So far, after surveying the book’s contents, we have thought about the covenant of grace and the nature of salvation concerning how those holding . . . Continue reading →

Reconciling the Divine Processions-Missions Relationship with Confessional Reformed Theology: An Engagement with Adonis Vidu’s The Divine Missions: An Introduction (Part 3)

This series of essays reflects upon Adonis Vidu’s new book about the divine missions to see how we who hold specifically to confessionally Reformed theology can think about and appropriate his arguments. The first post surveyed the book’s contents, and the second . . . Continue reading →

Reconciling the Divine Processions-Missions Relationship with Confessional Reformed Theology: An Engagement with Adonis Vidu’s The Divine Missions: An Introduction (Part 2)

This series interacts with Adonis Vidu’s thought-provoking new work about the divine missions. His project, fitting well in the recent retrieval of classical theism, is to explain how God’s ad intra operations, namely the personal processions of each person of the Godhead, . . . Continue reading →

Reconciling the Divine Processions-Missions Relationship with Confessional Reformed Theology: An Engagement with Adonis Vidu’s The Divine Missions: An Introduction (Part 1)

Recent years have seen a flourishing of new research and reflection upon classical trinitarian theology, producing a large swath of publications on theology proper. This development has most welcomely highlighted areas where Protestant theology had lost its diligence and rigor in listening . . . Continue reading →

Review of Fred Sanders, Fountain of Salvation: Trinity and Soteriology

Fred Sanders is likely the best-known name in recent theology concerning the doctrine of the Trinity and rightly so. He has addressed the topic at the academic and popular levels, providing hermeneutical advancements and introductory treatments.1 His most recent book, Fountain of . . . Continue reading →