Reformation21

My good friend Doug Sweeney at TEDS has just posted a very thoughtful piece about the future of seminary education on The Gospel Coalition website. Sweeney makes some points that are consistent with observations that I offered on this site awhile back. We agree that the church is facing a crisis of...

Thankfully, last night the NFL draft finally got underway. Since my team, the Indianapolis Colts, had the first pick--due to their awful season which itself was the result of Peyton Manning's injury--I and other football fans didn't have much suspense. But that hadn't stopped all of the endless...

It is not, perhaps, a locus classicus for the pastoral office, but Genesis 31.36-42 certainly gives us some impression of the liabilities and responsibilities of the shepherd as understood by the men who used that phrase of their protectors and rulers. Perhaps a similar picture begins to emerge in...

Like many, you may be appalled at how often the Lord Jesus issues a command to those whom he has healed to keep silent about what has taken place and the command is immediately not just ignored but thoroughly trampled upon. "Horrors!" we cry, "Didn't they hear him? Weren't they listening when he...

Recently the Westminster Larger Catechism's treatment of the Ninth Commandment (particularly Q. 144) has become an issue in some conservative Presbyterian presbyteries. For example, last fall my own ARP presbytery voted to establish an ad hoc committee "to draft a code of online conduct for...

The Guardian is a national newspaper and in Friday's edition you have this article 'Was Jesus Gay?' It is an awful piece and you wonder whether they would have had the guts to publish something similar on Mohammed. What strikes you as you read it, is that this is purely the author's subjective...

I returned home yesterday from the Banner of Truth Ministers' Conference held in Leicester in the UK. This was the fiftieth anniversary of its founding, though not quite the fiftieth conference (they missed maybe one or two for various reasons over the years). We heard Ted Donnelly (briefly but...

It is saddening for me to see Carl going the way of the great Ian Paisley. He who was always on the outside, raging against the status quo, who refused to be controlled, when he's offered a seat at the table changes his persona and ingratiates himself with the establishment. The signs have been...

First, thanks to all of our readers for the excellent questions submitted so far! There's still time to email more questions to r21@alliancenet.org Beginning next month, Dr. Oliphint will post article-length replies to your questions. Thank you again!

Last Lord's Day in preaching consecutively through the gospel of Matthew, I came to chapter 12 verses 1 to 14, where our Lord Jesus had an encounter with the Pharisees concerning the Sabbath. As I read the various modern commentators on the text, I was amazed at how few supported the idea that the...