Reformation21

I have decided, with some reluctance, to respond to Paul Helm's recent critique of God With Us. The reasons for my minor reluctance are two. First, I consider Paul a friend. I have learned much from him and, for example, wanted to make sure our students here at Westminster were exposed to his...

Editors' Note: This week, in conjunction with the Jennings/Garner debate, we will be featuring a number of articles on the Insider Movement. While this issue is before the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America more narrowly, it is also a subject that affects the global missionary...

Exploring the Heidelberger's robust doctrine of progressive sanctification In the recent and engaging discussions on the doctrine of sanctification, I have found it interesting that some in my own denomination, The Presbyterian Church in America, are quicker to reference the Heidelberg Catechism (...

Paul Helm has recently offered criticism of certain aspects of K. Scott Oliphint's book, God With Us (Crossway, 2012), and Reformation21 has published responses by Oliphint and Nate Shannon. (1) It is striking that neither Oliphint nor Shannon offers much discussion of Oliphint's central thesis and...

The most obvious difference between Biblical Theology and Systematic Theology, as already noted, is that while the former adopts a chronological approach, tracing the history of revelation, Systematic Theology treats the Bible as a finished product in which God has spoken his last word. But the two...

As a reminder of where we've been thus far, it might be helpful to list the Ten Tenets again. The Ten Tenets are these: The faith that we are defending must begin with, and necessarily include, the Triune God -- Father, Son and Holy Spirit -- who, as God, condescends to create and to redeem. God's...

Envy, like our previous vice, Sloth, is often misunderstood today. In fact, I suspect many of us are apt to confuse it somewhat with Greed. Both, it seems, boil down to wanting more stuff, so that Envy would seem to designate merely the sub-set of cases in which someone else already has the stuff...

The language of royalty is pervasive in the Psalms. "Rule," "king" and their cognates appear 98 times in the Psalms (and the figurative words "throne," "rod," or "scepter" appear 26 times). Kings govern their kingdoms via statutes or laws, and such language appears 110 times. Kings also defend...

The singularly brilliant Christian apologist of the seventeenth century, Blaise Pascal, noted the existential reality that the human condition was one of inconstancy , boredom and anxiety . For him, the only real cure was made known in history by the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and was not...

Paul David Tripp, Dangerous Calling:Confronting the Unique Challenges of Pastoral Leadership. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2015, PB, 240pp. I have been the Pastor of the same congregation for 12 years. I enjoy it. I mean, I really enjoy it. There is no other job I would want to do. It has been a...