I confess that in the pulpit I am often seized with ‘communication frustration,’ for a message burns within me, but I am unable to convey to others what I am thinking, let along feeling. And seldom if ever do I leave the . . . Continue reading →
HeidelQuotes
Dueling Jubilees: How The Calvinists And Lutherans First Celebrated The Reformation
Interestingly, it was Calvinists, not Lutherans, who in 1617 first proposed a centennial marking Luther’s attack on indulgences. Alarmed by an increasingly assertive Tridentine Catholic Church and lacking legal status in the Holy Roman Empire, early in that year church and royal . . . Continue reading →
Trueman: The Recovery Of The Ten Commandments Starts In Church And Home
But how can Christians champion the Ten Commandments as a moral standard if they themselves do not obey them? Yes, the Incarnation transforms the Decalogue. All Christian churches agree on that in principle. But most Christians disregard the Commandments without reflection and . . . Continue reading →
From The Reading Revolution To The Counter-Reading Revolution
It was one of the most important revolutions in modern history—and yet no blood was spilled, no bombs were thrown, and no monarch was beheaded. What happened was this: In the middle of the 18th century, huge numbers of ordinary people began . . . Continue reading →
5 Reformation Doctrines That Still Transform The Church
By most accounts, the Reformation began when a young monk challenged ecclesiastical and academic authorities to debate a controversial practice that had developed in the late-medieval period. Why do we continue to remember it roughly five hundred years later? Waving off Martin . . . Continue reading →
Honesty Is The Best Policy
I don’t like writing about this, but I like ecclesial lawlessness even less. And I don’t seek this stuff—it is thrust upon me. Is there any reason unordained persons should lay hands on ruling elders being ordained in a PCA church? Is . . . Continue reading →
Trueman: Rehumanizing Humanity
“What is man?” So urgent is the question of man that the question of God has re-emerged among our intellectual and cultural leaders. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Niall Ferguson, Paul Kingsnorth, and Russell Brand have all recently professed faith. Tom Holland and Elon . . . Continue reading →
What The Loincloths Signalled
While the problems of the evangelical Purity Movement have been well documented, one of its biggest errors was promoting a non-theological account of modesty focused almost exclusively on behaviors. With few exceptions, modesty was largely cast as the responsibility of women to . . . Continue reading →
Gathercole: Did Paul Really Expect Christ To Return In His Lifetime?
The mystery in 1 Corinthians 15.51–52 has long been a standard prooftext for the idea that Paul envisaged the parousia happening in his lifetime.1 On this view of the passage, Paul assumes his survival and that of a portion of his generation until . . . Continue reading →
Vos On The Startling Character Of What Happened On The First Christian Sabbath
Our text takes us to the tomb of the risen Lord, on the first Sabbath-morning of the New Covenant. It is impossible for us to imagine a spot more radiant with light and joy than was this immediately after the resurrection. Even . . . Continue reading →
The Principles Of Reformed Covenant Theology Unify The Bible’s Story
The principles of covenant theology unify the Bible’s story about God redeeming a people for himself. Even though we have to read our Bibles well to discern the doctrines of covenant theology, in return covenant theology helps us to read our Bibles . . . Continue reading →
What John Owen Actually Said About Biblicism
And the same is objected against them by Maimonides in Pirke Aboth: as though it were not known that the greatest part of their Talmud, the sacred treasury of their oral law, is taken up with differences and disputes of their masters . . . Continue reading →
Christian Camp Litigates For Religious Liberty
For more than 75 years, Camp IdRaHaJe has welcomed children each summer to hear the Gospel, build character, and grow in faith. Nestled in Bailey, Colorado, the camp’s name comes from a simple hymn lyric: “I’d rather have Jesus.” In 2024, the . . . Continue reading →
Young Ministers With Older Elders
As I lifted my hands, scanned the room, and gave my first benediction, the realization that I really was a pastor now hit me like a ton of bricks. From now on it was my job to “shepherd the flock of God… . . . Continue reading →
Second Circuit Rules For Christian School
Mid Vermont Christian School forfeited a girls’ playoff basketball game to avoid playing a team with a transgender athlete. The school believes that forcing girls to compete against biological males would affirm that those males are females, in violation of its religious . . . Continue reading →
Whose Kingdom, Which Power?
The pressure is immense. Then, we open social media and see absolutely no uniformity of agreement on how this should be done. There is pastoral disarray, it seems. Some of the most popular social media pastors are calling us to war, yes, . . . Continue reading →
Berkhof: The Minute Examination Of The Soul Does Not Produce Assurance
In the eighteenth century the religious life of Europe suffered from the blight of Rationalism. Religion became a matter of the intellect only, and religious truth was made to depend on rational arguments. Religious certainty was identified with a rational insight into . . . Continue reading →
Nihilism And The American Middle
In recent years, a new form of terror has emerged: decentralized, digitally driven violence organized not around coherent ideologies but around memes, fantasies, and nihilistic impulses. The perpetrators of this low-grade terror campaign do not belong to hierarchical organizations or pursue concrete . . . Continue reading →
Calvin: Christ Is The Mirror Of Our Election
First, if we seek God’s fatherly mercy and kindly heart, we should turn our eyes to Christ, on whom alone God’s Spirit rests [cf. Matt. 3:17]. If we seek salvation, life, and the immortality of the Heavenly Kingdom, then there is no . . . Continue reading →
We’re Not The First Christians To Live In A Sexualized Culture
We’re not the first Christians to live in a highly sexualized culture. In fact, many of the first New Testament Christians lived in exactly that kind of culture. Over and over again the apostles warn against sexual immorality. They had to do . . . Continue reading →