Editor’s Note: Earlier this summer I had the opportunity to reconnect with Bob, the Christian layman who first shared the gospel with me in 1976, while I was spending part of one day at week at an elementary school near my high . . . Continue reading →
HeidelQuotes
Plagiarism Is Not The Only Kind Of Fake Preaching
As the Southern Baptist Convention has been rocked with controversy over plagiarism, it’s easy to think that the extent of the problem is merely repeating someone else’s words. There is another aspect to plagiarism that often gets overlooked: Pulpiteering. Philip Doddridge in . . . Continue reading →
Strain To The PCA: Exceptions Do Not Become The Rule
But the model of confessional subscription aside, I think there is mounting evidence that the role played by our Confession and Catechisms—or at least, the use made of them in the PCA—is far from healthy at the present time. Anecdotally, one interesting, . . . Continue reading →
Sproul: A Justified Person Is Always A Changed Person But That Change Is No Part Of The Ground Of Justification
A justified person is always a changed person. A justified person differs from an unjustified person in critical ways. A justified person is a believing person; an unjustified person is an unbelieving person. A justified person is a regenerated person; an unjustified . . . Continue reading →
Perkins On The Pedagogical Use Of The Law
If life and justice come not by the law, the law then is in vain. And this objection is expressed by way of interrogation, ‘Wherefore then serves the law?’ The answer is in the next words, ‘It is added for transgressions,’ that . . . Continue reading →
A Notable Omission In The PCA Report On Sexuality: Nature
In that sense, the Bible’s view of sexuality is not motivated by small-mindedness, unloving moralism, discrimination, violence, and bullying, as its critics claim. Biblical sexuality comes from a theistic understanding of the universe, deeply rooted in the being of God Himself, which . . . Continue reading →
One Of The Sheep Speaks Up
Yes, brothers, the world is watching, but so are those in your congregations. You have not been ordained to placate the goats. Jesus has called you to feed His sheep. I humbly and joyfully exhort you as your sister in Christ to . . . Continue reading →
The Confession Must Not Be A Lost Language For Reformed Pastors
We Are Talking About Theology, Piety, And Practice
I believe the importance of this subject for the PCA is now matched by its urgency. If I may speak personally, one of the most alarming trends that I’ve seen among candidates for the ministry and among teaching and ruling elders in . . . Continue reading →
Schleiermacher In The Background: The PCA’s Struggle Over Confessional Identity
The struggle in the PCA over confessional identity is a microcosm of the macrocosm. The current discussions reveal that the PCA is on track to be another denominational domino to topple along with the mainline churches who have embraced theological liberalism. The . . . Continue reading →
Perkins: Eternal Life Is By Grace Alone, Through Faith Alone
If the inheritance of life eternal be by the law, it is no more by the promise. But it is by the promise because God gave it unto Abraham freely by promise. Therefore it comes not by the law. The opposition between . . . Continue reading →
The Proper Response To Postmodernism
There is a good deal of talk in contemporary evangelicalism about the rise, nature, and effect of so-called “postmodernism,” a movement in architecture, literature, philosophy, and religion associated with a circle of French writers such as Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida. In . . . Continue reading →
Machen’s Response To The Open Letter
In Stephen J. Nichol’s fine biography on J. Gresham Machen, he refers to historian Bradley Longfield’s description of the real problem within the church during the modernist controversy: namely, the moderates, whom Machen called the “indifferentists.” Machen wrote in a letter to . . . Continue reading →
Why The Gospel Is Not In The Stars: Nature Is Not Grace
In 1882 the Lutheran minister Joseph A. Seiss (1823-1904) published the provocative volume, The Gospel in the Stars, Or, Prímeval Astronomy (Philadelphia: E. Claxton & company, 1882). Evidently it found an audience and it has been reprinted as recently as the early . . . Continue reading →
Machen’s Other Opponents: The Moderates
Machen considered the church in the book’s final chapter, where he argued that since modernism was a different religion altogether, the honorable thing for modernists to do was to withdraw from the church. Knowing this to be unlikely, Machen appealed to moderates . . . Continue reading →
The Question Of The Hour In The PCA
The question of the hour is whether missional contextualization requires celibate gay/same-sex-attracted (SSA) “Side B” pastors. The supporters of (or tolerators of) Side B ministers and the novel doctrine that goes along with them would not say that mission-driven cultural accommodation (per . . . Continue reading →
Would You Send Your Child Away From The Dinner Table Unfed Weekly?
I can understand why evangelicals and others, who do not have a covenantal theology, would exile their children during public worship but I do not understand why so many ostensibly Reformed congregations have adopted the practice of dismissing their covenant children from . . . Continue reading →
There Is No Such Thing As A “Five Point” Calvinist
There are, therefore, more than five points and — as far as the confessions and the Reformed dogmaticians from Calvin to Kuyper are concerned — there cannot be such a thing as a “five-point Calvinist” or “five-point Reformed Christian” who owns just . . . Continue reading →
From Commune To Christ
The breaking point, for me, came during a weeklong music festival known as Vortex I. Funded jointly by the Portland counterculture and the Oregon government, it was meant to divert attention from an appearance by President Nixon and put a peaceful face . . . Continue reading →
Trueman: The Reformed Church Is A Home For Exiles
We live in a time of exile. At least those of us do who hold to traditional Christian beliefs. The strident rhetoric of scientism has made belief in the supernatural look ridiculous. The Pill, no-fault divorce, and now gay marriage have made . . . Continue reading →
Why You Should Pay Attention To The Reconstructionists In Moscow, ID
Previous accounts of Christian Reconstructionists have tended to focus on these believers’ theocratic vision of a future Christian polity rather than their separation from mainstream society. Today, Gribben concludes, these practitioners of “strategies of hibernation” may no longer be as marginal as . . . Continue reading →