Reformation21

I woke up this morning to David French’s New York Times Opinion article. [1] To be honest, it left a bad after taste. It wasn’t that everything he said was either wrong or inflammatory, it wasn’t. In fact, there were some interesting comparisons. For example, French insightfully suggests that the...

There’s a great deal of confusion about the nature of temptation and same-sex attraction. Many Christians, even pastors and theologians, some of whom are ostensibly Reformed, believe that same-sex temptation is not a sin. For them, sin only occurs when the act itself takes place. Others affirm that...

Having been unable to see my friend, who lives just across the border from me, for roughly two years during Covid-19, I was a little startled when we met and he immediately said to me, “you got grey.” I had, in fact, developed a lot of grey hair, no doubt because of the amount of stress caused by...

Welcome to Ref21! It probably sounds strange to be welcomed to a page that you have read for nearly twenty years! Ref21 has been a staple of daily Christian reading for literally thousands of believers. So, why act as if we are meeting for the first time? The answer is, we are. My name is Jeff...

The Westminster Shorter and Larger Catechisms have been effectively employed by churches around the world for nearly four centuries. Yet, strange to say, these well-loved documents may be missing a question. I’ll use the Shorter Catechism to demonstrate what I mean. WSC 85 asks, “What doth God...

Note: This post in an excerpt from the author's new book, Trembling Joy: A Biblical Defense of Traditional Worship (Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, 2022). What first comes to mind when you hear the word “liturgy”? You may believe that “liturgy” is something mechanical or impersonal, not really...

Last year, the PCA approved a report on human sexuality that rightly spoke to the hope and victory of believers over sexual sins (AIC, 7 AND 10). However, when overtures were written to extend this to ordained officers of the church (along with calls for holiness in several other areas of life like...

So what do you think is our greatest need as a nation? Interestingly, in a Wall Street Journal article, written in 1947 (two years after the Second World War), a writer made this observation: “What America needs more than railway extension, western irrigation, a low tariff, a bigger cotton crop,...

Whenever I get the opportunity to speak about worship in either a Sunday School series or an Inquirers class, I try to work in the following thought from Hart and Muether's With Reverence and Awe : “God’s intention was to bless his people through the constant and conscientious observation of the [...

I love having children in the worship service. It always makes my heart happy when I see children singing with their parents. As a preacher, I am encouraged to see children focusing during the sermon, even if they may not fully understand everything they hear. I try my best to make children feel...