Reformation21

When God made a covenant with Abram in Genesis 17, He emphasized covenant blessings and stipulations that extended to successive generations. The Hebrew prose style of repetition adds a poetic quality to this lovely and reassuring verse: And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your...

“If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” (Luke 9:23) The way of the cross is about Christian discipleship, and the problem is that there is very little actual following of Jesus Christ in our time. Discipleship means forsaking everything in...

Note: This post has been adapted from A New Exposition of the London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689 , edited by Rob Ventura , slated for release by Mentor Books in November 2022. Faith and repentance go hand-in-hand. Gloriously, we are saved through faith in Christ’s person and work; our...

On May 4th, 1865, Abraham Lincoln’s body was laid to rest at the Oakridge Cemetery in Springfield, IL. But his initial interment was anything but restful. In the years that followed, the crypt was disturbed 17 times for various maintenance and security reasons. So, in 1901, Robert Lincoln ordered...

In the film The Empire of the Sun , there is a vivid depiction of desperate thirst. In the chaos of World War II in China, the young son of a wealthy British expatriate is separated from his family. There is no one to care for him. The boy returns to his home and lives for a while on whatever food...

Note: This post has been adapted from A New Exposition of the London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689 , edited by Rob Ventura , slated for release by Mentor in November 2022. Chapter Fifteen of the Second London Baptist Confession addresses "Repentance Unto Life and Salvation." The location of...

In 268 AD, a bishop of Antioch, named Paul of Samosata, had begun teaching an early form of Unitarianism and Monarchianism. Specifically, he was teaching that Jesus was simply a human being who had been infused with the divine Logos: a man who became God, not God who became man. Controversy about...

Christians are Trinitarians. To worship the Trinity is definitional to the catholic faith. [1] This isn’t groundbreaking news by any means, but how much does this divine truth shape our worship? Drawing on Basil of Caesarea, Scott Swain rightly asserts that “...the entire Christian life is about...

“It is finished.” (John 19:30) Have you ever left a project unfinished? Our lives are filled with projects that we have never quite managed to finish. We have half-read books on our shelves, half-eaten meals in our refrigerators, and half-finished laundry on the floor in our bedrooms. Most of us...

While reading Nehemiah 9, I was impressed by how much Covenant theology is rooted in history. In the Old Covenant, God spoke through his prophets, priests, and kings to remind his people of what he had done for them in the past. We get focused on what is happening now and our hopes for the future...