Have you ever heard a Christian say something along the lines of, “Scripture destroys that argument!” At the best of times, this appears to be an excited proclamation of the Scripture’s power—indeed, the power of God and his truth over all things. . . . Continue reading →
The pastor need not be surprised if he finds troublers in his church. The discovery of such persons among the professed people of God sometimes shocks ministers, especially inexperienced ones, and discourages them, and sometimes leads them unwisely to give up their . . . Continue reading →
Dr. Rod Rosenbladt died in Christ today after a brief illness. There was no one else like him. J. I. Packer once told him, “Rod, you not only possess Luther’s theology, you embody the man.” No one has influenced my course in . . . Continue reading →
Forgiveness is one of the most difficult things required of us. You might almost say it goes against human nature. “To err is human; to forgive, divine.” That was Alexander Pope’s conclusion in “An Essay on Criticism.” [1] Christians generally know they . . . Continue reading →
One of the distinctives of Christianity is the call to behave otherworldly. Revenge is a human instinct and something most people would say is a natural right. Christ tells Christians to turn the other cheek and let God take care of vengeance . . . Continue reading →
Among the sins you and I both have wrestled with is the sin of unjust anger. When faced with injury or injustice—whether real or perceived, whether against our person, someone else, or some group of people—we have been moved to respond in . . . Continue reading →
Because to infants belongs the kingdom of heaven according to the declaration of Christ: “Little children were brought unto Christ, that he should put his hands on them and pray” (Mt. 19:13*). Since the disciples would repel them, Christ said, “Suffer little . . . Continue reading →
If someone Reformed is asked on what his perseverance in the state of grace rests, then he will not answer, “On something in me, on the power and the capacity for withstanding of the new life that I possess,” but, “Solely on . . . Continue reading →
Not regeneration, faith, or repentance, much less our assumptions pertaining to them, but only the covenant of grace gave people, both adults and children, the right to baptism. Continue reading →
The architectonic principle of the Westminster Confession is supplied by the schematization of the Federal theology, which had obtained by this time in Britain, as on the Continent, a dominant position as the most commodious mode of presenting the corpus of Reformed doctrine (so . . . Continue reading →
In a moment, I will point out a few places in Scripture that talk about the layers of self-control we began talking about in part one. Continue reading →
But now, having run through these various arguments, to what conclusion do we come? Are they sufficient to set aside our reasoned conviction, derived from some such argument as Dr. Hodge’s, that infants are to be baptized? A thousand times no. So . . . Continue reading →
Self-control is not a popular virtue. Few people really want to restrain themselves from pleasure or self-gratification. Very few people are concerned about regulating their grief, anger, or frustration. Instead, indulging in pleasure is a priority for many. People give full vent . . . Continue reading →
Every sectarian and heretical school of thought initially begins with an appeal to Scripture against the confession and would have us believe that its deviation from the doctrine of the church is required by Scripture. But in most cases further investigation leads . . . Continue reading →
The OPC raised me well. Even in my earliest memories, my church felt like home. But when I returned as a young adult from serving two years on a mission field, I began to feel deeply the tension of being single and . . . Continue reading →
To get a true understanding of the fruit of gentleness, we must first think about the gentleness of Christ, which we meditated on in part one. Now we can start to think about gentleness in our own Christian lives. Jesus said we . . . Continue reading →
The rest of the book focuses mostly on aspects of Paul’s explanation of salvation in Galatians. Schreiner defends the traditional Protestant view that the Galatian error involved legalistic tendencies to require some kind of work—namely, circumcision—as a condition of law keeping for . . . Continue reading →
I am guessing most of us are familiar with the word gentle. If you helped your friend move into an apartment, he probably told you to be gentle with the box containing dishes. When your son was holding his newborn brother, you . . . Continue reading →
John Rankin (1793–1886) was another towering figure among Southern Presbyterian abolitionists, whose work in both Kentucky and Ohio had a profound impact on the movement to end slavery. Born in Tennessee, Rankin was raised in a devout Presbyterian family that instilled in . . . Continue reading →
The difference between Augustine and Pelagius, Calvin or Castellio, Gomarus and Arminius is not that the latter were that much more gentle, loving, and tenderhearted than the former. On the contrary, it arises from the fact that the former accepted Scripture in . . . Continue reading →