Pope Paul III, however, was not sitting idle in this rapidly changing climate. In 1542, after a failed attempt to conciliate Roman Catholics and Protestants at the Diet of Regensburg, he agreed on renewing the earlier practice of the Roman Inquisition under . . . Continue reading →
What Pastors Shouldn’t Tell Their Wives: The Danger Of Too Transparency
Megan Hill, a Presbyterian pastor’s wife, has been writing about what pastors tell their wives and what they should tell them. I can answer that question in one word: nothing. By nothing, I mean “no confidential information.” A pastor may tell his . . . Continue reading →
Campus Rage Is A Sacrament Of A New Religion
when a mob at Vermont’s Middlebury College shut down a speech by social scientist Charles Murray a few weeks ago, most of us saw it as a another instance of campus illiberalism. Jonathan Haidt saw something more – a ritual carried out . . . Continue reading →
Thomas Müntzer’s Doctrine Of Scripture And Revelation
Müntzer stretched Karlstadt’s distinction between the Spirit and the flesh still further by discarding baptism altogether and by setting aside the Scriptures as in themselves constituting no more than a dead letter. ‘Bible, Babel, bubble!’ was his slogan. A. Skevington Wood, “The . . . Continue reading →
Inclusion And Exclusion: Getting It Right
Perhaps the most intense and difficult part about growing up is learning how to fit in, when to try, and when it does not matter. I suppose, we probably never really outgrow those questions but perhaps, as we mature, it matters less . . . Continue reading →
Office Hours—Steve Baugh On The Majesty On High: The Kingdom Of God In The New Testament
Right at its beginning the Gospel of Mark characterizes the gospel as a message of good news about the Kingdom of God (Mark 1:15). According to Scripture, Jesus’ gospel maybe summarized this way: “The time is fulfilled and the and the Kingdom . . . Continue reading →
Augustine’s Retractations, Perfectionism, And Fakespectations (2)
Secular institutions and even extra-ecclesiastical Christian institutions have always been, in their essence, law. The civil magistrate may exercise mercy—Calvin’s first published work was a commentary on Seneca’s De Clementia (On Clemency), Seneca’s defense of the virtue of mercy to Nero. When . . . Continue reading →
Augustine’s Retractations, Perfectionism, And Fakespectations (1)
For a long time I have been thinking about and planning to do something which I, with God’s assistance, I am now undertaking because I do not think it should be postponed: with a kind of judicial severity I am reviewing my . . . Continue reading →
Tertullian On The Apologetic Power Of Sola Scriptura
Take away, indeed, from the heretics the wisdom which they share with the heathen, and let them support their inquiries from the Scriptures alone: they will then be unable to keep their ground. Tertullian, De res. 3. On the Resurrection of the . . . Continue reading →
Two New Popular Biographies Of Zwingli
Since this is the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther’s 95 Theses (October 31, 1517) this has been understandably designated the “Luther Year.” There were, however, other figures in the Reformation, who made their own contribution. Huldrych (or Ulrich) Zwingli (1484–1531) is among . . . Continue reading →
Vos On The Role Of Works In Salvation
Works will come into consideration as a manifestation of genuine saving faith. Work in the scriptural sense also means not just an external display but the expression of one’s life that flows out of the depth of the heart…. Scripture also speaks . . . Continue reading →
Heidelcast 127: I Am That I Am (5)—The Trinity
There strong indications in the Hebrew Scriptures that the God of the Bible is not only personal, but that he is multi-personal. In Genesis 1:1, Scripture says that Elohim (God) created the heavens and the earth. In the very next verse, however, . . . Continue reading →
It Is Our Fault
British comedian Stephen Fry is in a bit of trouble in Ireland because of his answer to a question about what he would say to God at the gates of heaven. He replied, “How dare you create a world in which there . . . Continue reading →
Christ Is Our Red Sea
This does not happen by the physical water but by the sprinkling of the precious blood of the Son of God, who is our Red Sea, through which we must pass to escape the tyranny of Pharaoh, who is the devil, and . . . Continue reading →
With Presbycast On The Christian Sabbath And Intinction
Walter Sobchak is a memorable character in the brilliant Coen Brothers’ film, The Big Lebowski. For all that he is not (e.g., careful about his use of certain a Anglo-Saxon profanity), Walter is faithful to his commitment to Shabbos (the Yiddish term . . . Continue reading →
Whence The Claim That 97% Of Climate Scientists Support Global Warming
This claim is actually a come-down from the 1988 claim on the cover of Newsweek that all scientists agree. In either case, the claim is meant to satisfy the non-expert that he or she has no need to understand the science. Mere . . . Continue reading →
Thomas Cartwright On The True Sense Of Sola Scriptura And The Vincentian Canon
To the fourth we answer, that your conclusion of that which Jerome and Vincentius say, that the Devil and heretics use of the Scriptures is childish. And unless you will conclude that all those that use the Scriptures are heretics, it is . . . Continue reading →
Office Hours: Bob Godfrey On Sola Scriptura
This is season 8 of Office Hours and we are celebrating the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. In confessional Protestant circles we use some shorthand Latin phrases that all might not understand, even though we use them frequently. Sola scriptura, according to . . . Continue reading →
Valley Center In April
Grammar Guerrilla: Conversations, Discussions, And Arguments
For the better part of the last decade I have been hearing and reading the expression, “I do not like that conversation” or “I do not like that discussion.” If, in this context, the nouns discussion and conversation mean “the exchange of . . . Continue reading →