For John Calvin, worship was central to life - it is why man exists. Worship was also central to his understanding of the Reformation, for he believed that the church’s return to true worship was the flowering fruit of all that was being done in his time. Other than the preaching of God’s word, it...

Beware the church that is always trying to make Christianity cool again; far more often than not, their hearts are preoccupied with what the world wants than what God wants. Of course it could be argued that Christianity has never been cool. That’s fine. St. John’s Revelation of Jesus Christ...

The name evangelical was early on attributed to the Reformers and to Luther himself, and it was of course a fitting title as it not only grasped their recovery of the gospel, but also their emphasis upon it and the good news it declared. For Luther that good news only made sense in light of the bad...

When Satan tempted Eve in the Garden of Eden his angle of attack was to bring into question the sufficiency of God’s word. “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden?” Not only did Satan, like a good legalist, subtly add on to God’s word by adding the command 'any tree in...

“Post-Christian” is just one of the many titles being used these days to describe our brave new world, a world where absolute truth and the Truth have been pushed to our societal margins. And of course, this should come as no surprise to the alert and watchful Christian who has been following our...

Our extraordinary God loves the ordinary. And it seems that in his extraordinary salvation of sinners he loves to use ordinary means. This is true even in the extraordinarily gracious preservation of his children; ordinary means mark the road all the way home to our final rest in Christ. Indeed,...

The word depravity implies the absence of something that used to be abundant. In considering the doctrine of man’s total depravity it’s good to see first that man, Adam, was totally good, righteous, and upright. This is what Solomon taught when he declared that “God made man upright” (Ecclesiastes...

In today’s America it’s pretty much an accepted dictum that true freedom is being able to choose whatever it is we desire. And when it comes to sexuality and gay rights, this is especially the case. If a man desires to be with another man, true freedom is being able to do so without any restraints...

Genesis gives a fascinating account of fallen man’s collective attempt to define their own name themselves; a name that is very different from what God had already decreed. That uncompleted project was known as the Tower of Babel, a monument to mankind’s own self-exulted will and autonomous ability...

If there really has been a trend (resurgence? revival?) recently toward recovering the truths of reformed theology then it is most likely and not hard to miss that there has been a millennial flavor to that trend. Of course, all believers in every age have their own cultural moorings which they...

Samuel Miller (1769-1850) was a noted pastor-theologian remembered for his wise council concerning revivals as well as his fervent commitment to praying for authentic revival (as opposed to the pelagian-styled revivalism of Charles Finney). His keen theological mind was used by God in training up...

Corporate Worship, the gathering together of the saints to hear God’s word read and preached, to pray, sing, and commune together around the Lord’s Supper, is central to what it means to be a worshipping church (Hebrews 10:29; Acts 2:42). Within the Protestant tradition, as the Rev. Terry Johnson...

In the year 325, over 200 bishops met in the city of Nicea in order to settle what was then the most pressing issue of their day: who is Jesus Christ. What was astounding about this council of Christian theologians was that just thirty years earlier many of those same Bishops were in hiding, or if...