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Each year on October 31, confessing Protestants remember Martin Luther’s protest against the abuse of indulgences. It is called Reformation Day, and it deserves our attention. Myth 1 On October 31, 1517, Luther hammered the Ninety-Five Theses to the door of Castle . . . Continue reading →
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As I noted in the first part of this series, many young people want to get married and have children, yet they feel discouraged and doubt they will find a mate. Last time we focused on the problem of finding a spouse . . . Continue reading →
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Why Is [Covenant] Nomism So Attractive? “Good” motives can lead to bad, even deadly, theology. Only God knows what is in people’s hearts, so I am not judging or speaking about the personal intentions of those who would bring their own works . . . Continue reading →
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I was going to title this two-part essay “Find Girl, Marry Girl” as a follow-up to the brief series on the creational pattern for marriage and children, but some of the responses I received to it reminded me that for many young . . . Continue reading →
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In the first part we quickly introduced the basic (and erroneous) doctrine of covenant nomism—namely that God has established a system whereby sinners are admitted to the covenant by grace, but they stay in, retain that status, or retain the benefits received . . . Continue reading →
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We are approaching Reformation Day, so this seems like a good time to cover the basics again. The medieval church taught that we enter a state of grace through baptism. According to that teaching, we remain in a state of grace by . . . Continue reading →
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Qualifications and Caveats The decision to have children is obviously deeply personal and fraught with uncertainty (from a merely human perspective). Some readers complained that the exhortation in part 1 of this series was unnecessary and even burdensome. Dear reader, it was . . . Continue reading →
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So far, we have considered the cultural pressure for parents not to “be fruitful and multiply” (Gen 1:28), whether it comes from Malthusian theories of future scarcity, Paul Ehrlich’s theoretical “population bomb,” or Millennial and Gen Z fears about the state of . . . Continue reading →
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In the tumultuous years of the late 1960s and early 70s, in the midst of the Vietnam War, it became a truism among young people that the world was a too polluted, too violent, and too dangerous place in which to bring . . . Continue reading →
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So far in this series we have surveyed some significant voices in the interpretation of the Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF), and we have considered one of the more important documents in its background, the Scots Confession. Now it remains to consider . . . Continue reading →
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Come learn covenant theology! Continue reading →
In order to interpret the text of the Scots Confession and the Westminster Confession we must decide on a hermeneutic, a way of interpreting confessional texts. Often in the interpretation of confessional documents the temptation is to try to interpret a specific passage without reference to the broader context, but that is no way to read a text. Continue reading →
Of the three controversies surveyed briefly in this chapter, perhaps none of them better illustrates the diminished influence of the Reformed confession, and the rise of the QIRC in the conservative Reformed churches, than the thirty-year struggle over the doctrine of justification. . . . Continue reading →
As the baby-boomer generation came of age in the 1960s and 1970s, it led a broad cultural and religious reaction to traditionalism in various spheres. This is the era that brought us Woodstock and post-Vatican II guitar masses. The evangelical version of . . . Continue reading →
The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand forever.”—Isa. 40:8 When ought Christian people to withdraw from a church with which they have been connected and seek to lead other people to withdraw with them? That . . . Continue reading →
The efficacy of baptism is not tied to that moment of time wherein it is administered; yet, notwithstanding, by the right use of this ordinance, the grace promised is not only offered, but really exhibited, and conferred, by the Holy Ghost, to . . . Continue reading →
Recently, 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 Catholic Church in Escondido. She asked if there were any Catholics in the house. I . . . Continue reading →
Law and Gospel By definition, the command to pray presupposes faith. One cannot ask anything of God unless he believes that God has made a promise. Part of the Roman problem is that they do not distinguish the law and the gospel: . . . Continue reading →
On September 10, 2020, the Calvin University newspaper, Chimes, reported that Neland Avenue Christian Reformed Church (CRC) had appointed a deacon who is in a same-sex marriage.1 It appeared that the CRC was about to take a dramatic step toward the so-called . . . Continue reading →
The Problem of Sin and Free Will In A Reformed Catholic, Perkins’s first charge against Rome, which he notes is not the principal issue, is that the Roman communion has corrupted the doctrine of sin. It comes under the heading of free . . . Continue reading →
