On 24 November, the Roman Bishop, Francis, issued a document, Evangelium Gaudii which the Vatican classifies as an “Apostolic Exhortation.” It’s a book, a really long (217 pages) sermon. Rome is a complicated creature with seemingly endless categories offices, canons, decrees, laws, and . . . Continue reading →
Perhaps it may be objected that if we continue to be tolerated, we shall harm the church by an insistence upon the maintenance of a strict view of its doctrinal standards. I think that just from the “Liberal” point of view there . . . Continue reading →
Only it appeared to me to be requisite to show in passing, that this book makes known to us this privilege, which is desirable above all others — that not only is there opened up to us familiar access to God, but . . . Continue reading →
According to the Heidelberg Catechism there are three great heads of the Christian faith: guilt, grace, and gratitude. There may be other motivations to godliness but the catechism isn’t structured by them. It is structured by gratitude. Yet, there are those who . . . Continue reading →
Shocking as it may be, courses in medieval history and theology do not always have immediate relevance to late modern society. There is a theme in medieval history and theology, however, that does illumine what is happening to the global economy. Since . . . Continue reading →
My friend and colleague Mike Brown published a revision of his excellent MA (Historical Theology) thesis (Westminster Seminary California) in 2012 as Christ and the Condition: The Covenant Theology of Samuel Petto (1624-1711). As part of the background to explaining Petto, Mike . . . Continue reading →
It will now be asked, what manner of covenant was that at Mount Sinai, which is called the worst covenant? What kind of covenant was it? Sol. In general, it was a covenant of works, as to be fulfilled by Jesus Christ, . . . Continue reading →
In the previous installment we considered the role of Scripture in faith. Now we turn to its object. I think they’ve largely gone away but a few years back team-building “trust exercises” were all the rage. The producers even got the Duck . . . Continue reading →
From the confession of our opponents, who cannot deny that before Luther and Zwingli, there were innumerable persons who professed our faith and protested publicly against the papal errors. See what is related of the Waldenses and Albigenses, Hussites, Wycliffites, Lollards and . . . Continue reading →
Links are being added below. Refresh the page for updates throughout the day. For elders and parishioners and not infrequently for ministers, clergy taxes are one of the more difficult aspects of ministerial finances. Those difficulties just became potentially greater last week. . . . Continue reading →
But it still exists. It’s still possible to support the Heidelblog—the coffer continues!—but now, when your cursor strays over the coffer and your sound is turned up, you won’t be scared out of your chair. It hasn’t gone away entirely, the sound . . . Continue reading →
Thanks to Wayne Sparkman for his consistently excellent daily posts. From his keyboard comes a reminder that today is an anniversary of the Westminster Shorter Catechism. On this day in 1647, the House of Commons ordered the printing of the Westminster Shorter . . . Continue reading →
By Dorothy Sayers (1947) That I, whose experience of teaching is extremely limited, should presume to discuss education is a matter, surely, that calls for no apology. It is a kind of behavior to which the present climate of opinion is wholly . . . Continue reading →
Some years ago there was a sizeable movement among the Lutherans in Germany toward religiosity. Of some we believe that it was in truth, but with the majority it was but an illusion. This counterfeit religiosity has in some places also affected . . . Continue reading →
Beginning at least in the 1560s, it was non-controversial for Reformed theologians to teach that God, before the fall, entered into a legal, probationary covenant with Adam, who was the representative of the whole human race, the condition of which was perfect . . . Continue reading →
For myself, as, no doubt, for most of my contemporaries, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation. The liberation we desired was simultaneously liberation from a certain political and economic system and liberation from a certain system of morality. . . . Continue reading →
Last time we saw that faith is a gift. The Evangelical Theological Society met in Baltimore this week. They discussed the inerrancy of Scripture. My former colleague and now frequent critic, John Frame, gave the plenary address defending the inerrancy of Scripture. . . . Continue reading →
Let no one, then, seek confidence in his own election of God anywhere else than “in Christ,” unless, indeed, he would blot out, and do away with, the “book of life” in which his name is written. God’s adoption of us “in . . . Continue reading →
