Sacraments

Sacramentos divinamente instituídos

by on September 22, 2024

Às vezes, os defensores do catolicismo romano, inquiridores e até mesmo docentes nas catedrais britânicas e europeias deixam a impressão de que a Reforma se infiltrou na igreja e roubou cinco sacramentos antigos quando ninguém estava vendo. Isso é completamente falso. Não . . . Continue reading →

What Should We Think About At The Table?

by on September 14, 2024

At my church, the Lord’s Supper elements are distributed (the bread then the wine), held, and then the congregants partake in unison to demonstrate the communal nature of the meal. I like this way of doing it though it’s certainly not the only way. . . . Continue reading →

Review: Children At The Lord’s Table? By Cornelis P. Venema (Part Three)

by on August 15, 2024 | 3 Comments

According to Venema, the “most important and compelling piece of New Testament evidence that bears on the question of paedocommunion is undeniably 1 Corinthians 11:17–34” (101). This is because this passage is “the most extensive and comprehensive New Testament passage on the . . . Continue reading →

Review: Children At The Lord’s Table? By Cornelis P. Venema (Part Two)

by on August 8, 2024

Venema observes that the Reformed churches are committed to the principle of sola Scriptura which means that the Scriptures are to be “regarded as the supreme standard for their faith and life,” but that principle does not mean that we read the Scriptures in isolation from the church or from church history (27). Continue reading →

Review: Children At The Lord’s Table? By Cornelis P. Venema (Part One)

by on August 1, 2024

In this volume Cornelis Venema tackles a serious problem in the Reformed world that needs to be addressed, and he has done so in a thoughtful, thorough, biblical, and confessionally Reformed manner. Background to the Review Before we begin the review, it . . . Continue reading →

Harry Potter And The Allure Of A Magical World

by on July 3, 2024 | 100 Comments

The Harry Potter movies were enchanting movies (pun intended). They are shot through with overt theological themes: ontology, good and evil, cosmology, sin, and redemption. Part way through one of them, I remembered something that Bob Godfrey once said, something that I . . . Continue reading →

Between The Evangelical Circus And Deconstruction

by on April 24, 2024 | 7 Comments

This has been a strange week in Lake Wobegon. No sooner had the news emerged that an evangelical megachurch, James River Church (Springfield, MO) hired a male stripper/sword swallower—who, according to Julie Roys, “moonlights as a pole-dancing striptease artist at gay nightclubs”—to . . . Continue reading →

Fed By Christ Or The Person Next To Me?

by on December 15, 2023 | 12 Comments

One of the recurring questions I get is about the meaning of body in 1 Corinthians 11:28. The question is whether “discerning the body” in Paul’s narrative refers to “being cognizant of the congregation” or to discerning Christ’s physical, actual body and blood, . . . Continue reading →

Sola Scriptura In The Reformed Reformation

by on September 5, 2023

In 1518, Bucer had heard Martin Luther’s famous Heidelberg Disputation as a young friar in the Dominican monastery. Eventually, he himself became the major reformer in the strategic city of Strasbourg. Particularly intriguing is how the Reformation caught fire there, at least . . . Continue reading →