Today, also, those crackpots, the Anabaptists, who cause so much trouble in the world, who denounce governments, magistrates, the unity of the church, never tire of repeating this phrase, “Blessed are those who suffer persecution.” Yes, but do they suffer on account . . . Continue reading →
HeidelQuotes
What I Learned Reading Difficult Books Very Slowly
So what did my days as a student look like? Really, I spent hours and hours each day just… reading. For variety, I did some studying with fellow students, but most of the work was done alone. All Classics majors got a . . . Continue reading →
Scott Swain on the Four Marks of the True Church
The church is the crowning achievement in the work of salvation, planned by the Father, accomplished by the Son, and brought into reality by the Spirit (Eph 1:3–14). The Father’s “plan for the fullness of time” is to sum up all things . . . Continue reading →
Augustine Contra The Postmodernists
In Augustinian thought, signs, then play a key role in bringing us into contact with the realities they signify. Drawing lines to the Christian life, Augustine argued that catechesis means explaining how “the signs of divine realities are visible, but the invisible . . . Continue reading →
Junius on Providence
Aristotle said it with style: people who set their heart on, proving to themselves with drawn-out arguments “that some providence is,” actually deserve whips, not words; a reply from an executioner, not a philosopher (nor, I add, a theologian). And what is . . . Continue reading →
Dennis Johnson: Two Truths Of Apostolic Preaching
The skillful and pastoral interweaving of theological discussion and exhortation, of doctrine and application, [as demonstrated in Hebrews] illustrates two truths about apostolic preaching that are often ignored in the polarized atmosphere of contemporary preaching. On the one hand, truly apostolic preaching . . . Continue reading →
Free Speech And The Fifth Circuit
Whether or not the federal government and its myriad agencies will be able to coerce, cajole, encourage, threaten, and browbeat social media companies into removing views it does not like from their platforms was the question before the Fifth Circuit Court of . . . Continue reading →
Van Asselt On Why Confessional Reformed Seminaries Matter
The Academy of Geneva was established in 1559 under politically difficult circumstances. Especially under Theodore Beza (1519–1605), who was also instrumental in the creation of two chairs of law in 1566 and a chair of medicine in 1567, the academy flourished and . . . Continue reading →
Bavinck On The Old And New Man
True, we speak of an old and a new man in the believer, and so we give expression to the fact that in the new life the whole man has in principle been changed, and that nevertheless the power of sin continues . . . Continue reading →
Kim Riddlebarger on the Challenges of 2 Peter
…But from the moment we open this all-too often overlooked, but very important letter ascribed to the apostle Peter, it soon becomes apparent that there are a number of problems faced by anyone who attempts to exposit this letter, or treat it . . . Continue reading →
How To Find The Meaning Of Life
. . . One of the challenges we face when coming to this question of the meaning of life is the sheer magnitude of answers that people have put forward. In one sense, it’s understandable that so many feel bewildered by it. . . . Continue reading →
Pictures Of Jesus Do Not Help Our Piety, They Hinder It
Even pictures of Jesus can only hinder our understanding of God’s truth. For instance, no true picture of Jesus exists, so the ones artists do make merely reflect the artist’s own image of our Savior rather than what God has sovereignly revealed . . . Continue reading →
S. M. Baugh on “Guilt, Grace, and Gratitude”: Part 3 — Gratitude
If you do a search in the ESV for the word “grateful” you only get three hits in the whole Bible, two of which produce the word “ungrateful” (Luke 6:35; 2 Tim. 3:2), leaving only one place where the word “grateful” is . . . Continue reading →
Dennis Johnson On The Credibility Of Christ’s Gospel
Although Old Testament anticipation (whether in prophetic words or in “types,” those “incarnated prophecies” embedded in Israel’s concrete historical experience) and New Testament fulfillment are bound together by strands of similarity, the move from promise to fulfillment, from “shadow” to “reality” (in . . . Continue reading →
The Dispensationalists Are Wrong: We Should Pray The Lord’s Prayer Now
Jesus, instructing his disciples on the basics of prayer, uses the imperative and tells them to “Pray in this manner!” (Matt. 6:9), going on to then give what we know as the Lord’s Prayer. This has been taken to mean—and rightly so—that . . . Continue reading →
William Perkins: Grace Admits No Partner
The Galatians are removed not only from the doctrine of Paul, but also from the grace of God. And the reason is because they joined the works of the law with Christ and His grace in the cause of their justification and . . . Continue reading →
Are the Feds Charged With Fixing Loneliness?
What if I told you to trust the feds to help you deal with your feelings of loneliness and social isolation? I hope you’d laugh in my face. These are the same folks who demanded you self-isolate, hide your face, and stay . . . Continue reading →
Jesus Versus The Movers & Shakers
For well over a decade now, I have heard Christians approvingly employ phraseology about social and ecclesiastical constructs—phrases such as “a seat at the table” and “power structures.” I have a friend who—when he was first coming into the denomination in which . . . Continue reading →
On The Death of Infants and the Promise of the Covenant of Grace
Despite the widely accepted American dogma of an “age of accountability”–that unspecified moment when children supposedly become responsible for their sins, and for any possible rejection of Christ–there is no such doctrine taught anywhere in Scripture. Sadly, this unsupported dogma holds out . . . Continue reading →
Dennis Johnson On Scripture As A Tapestry
Without ignoring the obvious fact that the Bible contains many stories, spanning thousands of years, with many participants, …the individual stories [are] threads woven into the pattern of a single tapestry: the Big Story of the Creator-King whose inscrutable wisdom, justice, and . . . Continue reading →