Westminster Larger Catechism

We live in an image-obsessed culture – everything we do is captured in images: photographs, drawings, videos, and TikToks. Images and images and images and images. They help us think. They help us learn. They help us better understand ideas and concepts. ‘I’m just a visual person,’ some will...
Two of some of the biggest questions that many Christians ask relate to prayer. On one hand, Christians want to know how they should pray. On the other hand, they want to know what they should be praying for. According to the Westminster Larger Catechism, “Prayer is an offering up of our desires...
Reformed, confessional theologians often point out that discipline is one of three signs of a true church. [1] Highlighting this distinguishing mark, my seminary professor once rhetorically asked our class, “How many true churches are out there?” The Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF) chapter 30...
Jonathan and James go guestless, discussing one-on-one the answer to Westminster Shorter Catechism Question 38 concerning the benefits believers will enjoy from Christ at the resurrection. Though we are already thoroughly blessed by our relationship with Christ, there are three distinct benefits...
Charles Spurgeon’s famous quip goes something like this, “I love to proclaim these strong old doctrines, that are called by nickname Calvinism, but which are surely and verily the revealed truth of God as it is in Christ Jesus.” We might say something similar about justification. We may describe it...
That holiness of life which the Christian has from God and before God and for God is not sourced nor drawn from even the best doctrinal formulations – as essential as they are to our faith. Nor is holiness of life sourced or drawn from moral transformation – as essential as it is to living out our...
We often pray the fifth petition of the Lord’s Prayer after sinning. We should learn to pray the sixth petition before similarly sinning again, remembering, ye have not because ye ask not (James 4:2). The essence of the sixth petition, And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil (...
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...
Jay Harvey
How shall the church think about social issues of race, justice and power? It is increasingly popular for these issues to be framed and discussed in the church using the categories of social justice and racial privilege as defined by the social sciences. In secular academic settings such categories...
Brian Tallman
In 2011, the session of the church that I pastor sought to educate and assist the members of the church regarding proposed changes that we had decided to make to an important aspect of our corporate worship services. Prior to these changes, unordained men would regularly lead the congregation in...