Lately it’s been like watching a really good hitter during batting practice. The same pitch comes again and again and each time there is a satisfying “crack” as bat meets ball and said ball leaves the park.
Challenges of Planting Confessional Congregations
Andy Webb has a helpful reminder to all of us involved in planting confessional Reformed congregations. There are obvious things we can do that have nothing to do with “programs” or manipulation. The chief of these things to go out of our . . . Continue reading →
Two Covenants in Redemptive History: Grace and Works
This is standard Reformed theology. The 17th-century Reformed orthodox spoke regularly about a sort of covenant of works with national Israel. It wasn’t a well-formed or highly defined doctrine but they appealed to the promulgation of the law at Sinai as proof . . . Continue reading →
Saved By The Childbearing
I waited to say anything about this because I wanted to look into it a bit first. Wes White has a fascinating and important post on the interpretation of 1 Tim 2:15. Of course this is a difficult passage. The ESV says . . . Continue reading →
Ha Gefen: Resource for Jewish Evangelism
Here’s a site in which WSC alumnus David Zadok is involved. Here’s the English language site. It’s an important new resource to fulfill the vital calling to bring the gospel to Israelis and Hebrew-speaking Jews everywhere.
What's the Big Deal About Preaching?
Gordon Cheng raises this question (HT: Colin Adams) as part of a brief post on a passage from Richard Baxter’s Reformed Pastor. Cheng says, I’ve never really agreed with the evangelical emphasis on preaching, and never quite understood how evangelicals make so . . . Continue reading →
Computers in the Classroom (Part 2)
I appreciate the feedback to the first post. I started this post as a reply to some of the comments but it became too long for a comment, so I made it a new post.
Computers in the Classroom…Not All They’re Cracked Up to Be?
I’m developing a(n) hypothesis about laptop computers in the (seminary) classroom. My theory, based on my observations of college and seminary students since 1995, is that student reliance upon notebook/laptop computers for taking notes is not helping them to learn.
Vos Still Matters
WSC grad and PhD student Andrew Compton points out something I have thought for many years, that Geerhardus Vos fundamentally undermined the entire higher critical (liberal) project. Since that time it is often the case when I read some (higher) critical commentary . . . Continue reading →
Solitary, Poor, Nasty, Brutish, and Short?
The shootings in Omaha and in Colorado raise the specter of a (Thomas) Hobbesian “state of nature” wherein life is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short” and a war of “all against all.” With these two (or three) events clustered together it . . . Continue reading →
In Case You're Worried About Purgatory
Good news for those evangelicals and nominally Reformed folk who are thinking of going to “Rome Sweet Home:” Yesterday, the Holy Father himself promulgated a new plenary indulgence (HT: διαθηκη). “What?” you say, “I thought Rome was shamed into giving up plenary . . . Continue reading →
Pan Confessionalism on Law and Gospel (3)
Olevianus, Beza, Perkins, Twisse, The Marrow Men: Lutherans? You decide. Caspar Olevianus (1536-87). For this reason the distinction between law and Gospel is retained. The law does not promise freely, but under the condition that you keep it completely. And if someone . . . Continue reading →
Heidelberg Catechism Question 10: Will God Punish Disobedience?
10. Will God suffer such disobedience and apostasy to go unpunished?By no means,1 but He is terribly displeased with our inborn as well as our actual sins, and will punish them in just judgment in time and eternity, as He has declared: . . . Continue reading →
Will God Punish Disobedience? (HC 10, pt 1)
10. Will God suffer such disobedience and apostasy to go unpunished? By no means,1 but He is terribly displeased with our inborn as well as our actual sins, and will punish them in just judgment in time and eternity, as He has . . . Continue reading →
Jansenism Lives
Cornelius Jansen (1585-1638) Bishop of Ypres – founder of the Jansenist Movement Continue reading →
Picking a Psalm for Worship
Not having been raised in the Reformed tradition, indeed, not having been raised in the church, I am still getting to know the Psalter the way I should. Second, I don’t read music. As my musical children tell their unmusical dad, “The . . . Continue reading →
More on Worship and the RPW
I have some posts in response to the post earlier today on worship. Jamie asks, …Do you believe in any kind of responsive reading of creeds or confessions? I was in a Free Church of Scotland all last year, and I know . . . Continue reading →
If We Won't Discipline, Are We Really the Church?
One of the clearest commands our Lord gave during his ministry, before his crucifixion, death, burial, and ascension, was to practice discipline in the congregations (Matt 18). It has been abused, but more often it has been neglected. The Apostle Paul also . . . Continue reading →
An Interview On Adoption
Editor’s Note: This interview first appeared on the Nightlight Christian Adoptions blog in 2007. It appears here as an archive. As part of our blog’s adoption interview series, I’m interviewing several theologians about the doctrine of spiritual adoption and its implications for . . . Continue reading →
Theonomy and the Federal Vision
One aspect of the self-named Federal Vision movement that is sometimes overlooked is its connection to theonomic ethics. “Federal Vision” (hereafter FV) refers to a movement with roots in the early 1970s (see below) but that developed in the 1990s. They took . . . Continue reading →