The late Reformation era slogan semper Reformanda has been often abused. It is often taken to mean that we need to get rid of basic Reformation convictions, e.g., sola Scriptura, the doctrine that Holy Scripture is sufficient for Christian faith and practice. What it . . . Continue reading →
Like a lot of American evangelicals, the faith I was taught as a teen-aged convert was a sort of Dispensationalism. There were no charts that I recall but I did learn that Jews are God’s earthly people and that the church is . . . Continue reading →
Saints and Sinners is a podcast led by Pastor Ken Jones, a voice familiar to long-time listeners of the White Horse Inn. S&S features Pastors David Menendez, Jose Prado, and Aldo Leon, each of whom serves a congregation in the Miami metro. In . . . Continue reading →
We are in the midst of a large and important discussion, in the confessional Presbyterian and Reformed world, about nature, grace, sin, human sexuality, the doctrine of humanity (theological anthropology). The presenting issue, as the physicians say, is the claim that there . . . Continue reading →
The doctrine of union with Christ is an essential part of the Reformed doctrine of the application of salvation to the elect by the Holy Spirit (ordo salutis). In the Westminster Shorter Catechism, Presbyterian Churches say: Q. 30. How doth the Spirit . . . Continue reading →
David Brooks published an opinion piece in the New York Timeson 5 September (2019), in the voice of one of the apparently many angry, bitter, lonely folks who view the world principally through their screen of their phone or computer. He captures . . . Continue reading →
One of the first and greatest differences between the Augustinian understanding of Paul and what became the dominant understanding of Paul. By the 7th century and for most of a millennium following, the parable of the Good Samaritan (Mark 10:29–37) became the . . . Continue reading →
Recently I talked with Matthew and Onnig of the Back to the Reformation podcast about the value of the Reformation for contemporary evangelical churches, about what biblicism is (hint: it does not mean “to be biblical”), about American religious history and the . . . Continue reading →
It is being argued by some prominent evangelicals, who identify themselves as Reformed, that salvation is in two stages. They say that the first stage of salvation is justification by grace alone, through faith alone on the basis of Christ’s righteousness imputed. . . . Continue reading →
What if I told you that there is an entire library of orthodox, careful, influential, important, Reformed books, that formed and shaped our entire history—books on Reformed theology, piety, and practice, biblical interpretation, biblical theology, covenant theology, commentaries on Scripture, the Christian . . . Continue reading →
This slender volume contains four essays. One written jointly by Crawford Gribben and Chris Caughey, one by Matthew Bingham, one by D. G. Hart, and one by yours truly. Ordinarily this volume is, for its size, rather expensive. It is a little . . . Continue reading →
Like so many other efforts at reforming life in Protestant churches, Pietism and Methodism were right in their opposition to dead orthodoxy. Originally their intention was only to arouse a sleeping Christianity; they wished not to bring about a change in the . . . Continue reading →
In a recent interview posted to the Australian edition of a very popular evangelical website, Ed Shaw, co-founder of the Living Out website, where it is argued that same-sex attraction (SSA) is “natural” and that SSA is not per sesinful—this is the . . . Continue reading →
The words “felon,” “offender,” “convict,” “addict” and “juvenile delinquent” would be part of the past in official San Francisco parlance under new “person first” language guidelines adopted by the Board of Supervisors. Going forward, what was once called a convicted felon or . . . Continue reading →
Investigative journalist Julie Roys has alerted us all to news published in the Palm Beach Post that Tullian Tchividjian has planted a new congregation in Palm Beach Gardens, FL. This is news because Tchvidjian’s ministerial credentials were revoked by his PCA presbytery on . . . Continue reading →
It is exciting to discover what are sometimes called “the doctrines of grace,” i.e., the teaching that even though by nature we are dead in sins and trespasses, we came to faith because God loved us in Christ from all eternity and . . . Continue reading →
18. Thus under the old testament, when God would take the posterity of Abraham into a new, peculiar church-state, he did it by a solemn covenant. Herein, as he prescribed all the duties of his worship to them, and made them many . . . Continue reading →
In Matthew 16:18 he promised to build “his church” and that the gates of hell would not prevail against his church. He gave the “keys of the kingdom” (16:19) to Peter as a Christ-confessor an anticipation of his office as apostle. In . . . Continue reading →
The Ancient Christian church did not use musical instruments in public worship. They did not enter public worship in the West until the middle of the 8th century, i.e., well into the early medieval period. Further, that was one isolated instance, in . . . Continue reading →