Church History

When "Catholic" is not "Catholic"

John Bugay
Nov 25, 2017
Jerry L. Walls and Kenneth J. Collins, Roman but Not Catholic: What Remains at Stake 500 Years after the Reformation , Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Publishing Group, 464 pp. Bibliography and indicies. Paperback. $34.99. The title itself implies a kind of jiujitsu--that of turning an opponent's weight or...

Studying the Confession: The Doctrine of Decree

Jeffrey Waddington
Nov 24, 2017
One of the landmark documents of the Westminster Assembly of Divines (1643-1653) is the Confession of Faith. This confession was created to provide a doctrinal basis for unity across the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland. Although in God’s inscrutable providence the confession did...

Studying the Confession: The Proof Texts

Tim Bertolet
Nov 22, 2017
When it comes to the Westminster Confession of the Faith, we often do not think very much about how we might be able to study the Confession’s use of Scripture. In fact, most of us probably do not get very far beyond acknowledging the proof texts that the Confession offers. Yet the use of Scripture...

Girolamo Zanchi – a Theologian of Peace and Comfort

Simonetta Carr
Nov 21, 2017
On November 19, 1590, the Italian Reformer Girolamo Zanchi died while visiting the University of Heidelberg where he had once been professor of theology. He was buried with honors. His epitaph read, “Here lie the bones of the Italian Zanchi, exiled from his homeland for love of Christ.” The epitaph...

Westminster Assembly Study Guide Podcast

Jonathan Master
Nov 20, 2017
This week on Theology on the Go, Dr. Jonathan Master is joined by Emily Van Dixhoorn (M.A.R., Westminster Theological Seminary; B.A., Brown University). Emily is a mother of five children and loves theology, mathematics, tennis, and time with her family. She has been leading Bible studies and...

Luther's Lion-Hearted Historians

Aaron Denlinger
Nov 20, 2017
Luther expressed his appreciation for history and historians on numerous occasions. History, he believed, provides fodder for both fear and praise since God is sovereign over the course of human events. History records and reminds us how God "upholds, rules, obstructs, prospers, punishes, and...

Assurance: a Pastoral Conversation

Jeffrey Stivason
Nov 13, 2017
The best doctors are diagnosticians. Those who have hidden the taxonomy of pathogens in their cerebral cortex and are able to ply their knowledge to the often distorted complex of a patient’s woes – that, is a doctor indeed. The best of the Puritans were the best of spiritual doctors. Let’s imagine...

Assurance and the Westminster Confession of Faith

Rachel Miller
Nov 10, 2017
“The greatest of all Protestant heresies is assurance.” Cardinal Robert Bellarmine (1542–1621) [1] Can we know that we're saved? That question was at the heart of the Reformation. Rome taught that professing believers could never be certain of their salvation. For this reason, believers needed to...

Doctrine Alone

Mark Johnston
Nov 9, 2017
The season of the Reformation ‘ Solas ’ has just ended and we have been reminded of the ‘aloneness’ of Scripture, grace, faith, Christ and the glory of God. But, hopefully, we will have also been reminded too that none of these are ‘alone’ in an absolute sense. The Reformers never divorced...

Assurance and the Heidelberg Catechism

Amy Mantravadi
Nov 8, 2017
The Heidelberg Catechism, penned mostly by Zacharias Ursinus and Caspar Olevianus, is among the most beloved and best written statements of Reformed Christianity. The forms of assurance discussed in this catechism fall into two broad categories: 1) those benefits which accompany union with Christ...