Ref21 Blog

Soon after my husband and I moved back to St. Louis from Philadelphia and rejoined Covenant Presbyterian Church, we got a call from a friend inviting us to join a new supper club that she and her husband were...

I met my husband, Pete, in April of 2004. We were set up on a blind date by a mutual friend who knew both of us well, and our friend thought we would be the perfect match. The only...

I'm sure there's a generational gap when someone refers to Mr. Magoo. If you're under 30, there's a good chance that you've probably never heard of Mr. Magoo. I just so happened to have watched enough classic cartoons over...

In light of current discussions regarding racial reconciliation, we thought that it might be a benefit to our readers to run a series of videos from a longtime contributor, Rob Ventura, and his wife, Vanessa, concerning a variety of subjects...

In the previous post in this series, we briefly considered how Calvin's appreciation of wisdom theology is particularly present in his comments on the Johannine literature. In Calvin's commentary of 1 John, we discover one of the marks of the wisdom...

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...

Yesterday, Kevin DeYoung kicked the proverbial hornet's nest when he wrote a post titled, "I Don't Understand Christians Watching Game of Thrones." That post was swiftly met with a tirade of social media attacks, such as, "The Bible has many,...

This summer has been no different than those which proceded it. At this time of year, you are possibly continuing to see references to the usual litany of 'Summer Reading recommendations for Pastors.' As end-of-summer vacations loom, men in...

Admittedly the New Perspective on Paul (NPP) isn't so new anymore. As a significant scholarly hermeneutical movement, it goes back at least as far as the late 1970s with the groundbreaking work of E. P. Sanders. It goes back...

In his helpful blog post "The Slippery Slope and the Jesus Box" Rev. Rick Phillips explains that there is indeed a slippery slope about which we must be concerned in theology.  I say indeed, because many will be aware...

Over twenty years ago, while in seminary, I was present during a hallway conversation with a professor who then seemed to be moving toward liberal theology. A student asked how this man's higher critical methods would enable him to...

Over at Derek Rishmway's blog Reformedish, Tim Keller has posted an excellent article on the reality of Christ's suffering on the cross. Relying on excerpts drawn from Calvin's interpretation of the descent of Christ into hell (Book II.16.8), Keller...

Being fully committed to the Protestant Reformed tradition--especially as it is represented at Westminster Theological Seminary--I have developed a basic understanding of natural law theories over the years. If by "natural law" we mean a moral order that is...

Which is more likely today, liturgical sameness or liturgical strangeness? Which is more damaging to the integrity of Protestant denominations? Are we suffocating from liturgical uniformity--encountering the same old predictable things in the Reformed churches we attend? Or, are...

It is vital to note that while many Particular Baptists were in the state of declension (as described in part 1 of this series of studies on the renewal of this eighteenth-century Baptist community), from the mid-1730s on there...