Reformation21

If a preacher had one sermon to preach to unbelievers he would likely preach something that follows the Apostolic pattern in the book of Acts. But what about when faced with the chance to give just one message to those who are Christians? Here there is, naturally, a lot more liberty. Usually, when...

My first article began with the observation that Satan ambitiously aims to attack the church at the very points that are intended by God for its defence. He seeks to bring the world into the church through its elders, and at the heart of its public worship. Having considered the problems of...

My first article began with the observation that Satan ambitiously aims to attack the church at the very points that are intended by God for its defence. He seeks to bring the world into the church through its elders, and at the heart of its public worship. Having considered the problems of...

Answering who is your best friend is a little like answering who is your favorite character in the Bible. The rules of theology (rightly) demand that we answer the latter question with the name that is above every name. And the rules of society today seem to demand that we answer the first question...

Use of the "five solas" -- sola scriptura , sola gratia , sola fide , solo Christo , and soli Deo gloria -- to collectively summarize Reformation theology is apparently a twentieth-century thing. The reformers, to be sure, used these phrases (or very similar ones) to communicate distinct truths...

In a recent post Collin Garbarino took on the hordes of Halloween detractors to provide us with a piece of the real history of Halloween. I would like to ride his coattails (and let him take the majority of the angry emails) by confirming that the historical record is fully supportive of his...

At the church where I minister, we have a morning and an evening service, both of which are practically identical in their order and form. As far as I am aware, we are one of the few Presbyterian churches in Canada who have both services on the Lord's Day. In America, from what I am told, more and...

If we're awake, we will have a keen sense of the powerful undertow of a culture that has discarded almost every reference to, or value of, Jesus Christ. To the world, the church is too often considered an obsolete community with little to say and even less to offer by way of 'relevance'. Given room...

In the Nicene Creed we confess that the church is "one, holy, catholic, and apostolic." Of these four marks, the third mark--the catholicity of the church--is probably the most susceptible to misunderstanding among evangelical Protestants. The catholicity of the church, according to common...

I've been slowly working my way through Katherine Sonderegger's Systematic Theology Volume 1: The Doctrine of God . Released this year, it is the sort of book that pastor-theologians or theological students could make the focus of a reading group. It is beautifully written, fresh, biblical in...