Reformation21

Halloween: It's a conscience issue, and my own conscience is pricked by the thought of participating in it. However, I also recognize that there are legitimate (even “biblical”) reasons that one might have for celebrating with the rest of their neighbors. It's important to realize that historians...

The year 1517 is remembered as the year that the pendulum shifted in history and the Reformation began in full swing, and for good reason: This was the year that Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the castle church in Wittenberg, Germany. But it was in 1518, at the Heidelberg...

Editor's Note: This post has been adapted from A New Exposition of the London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689 , edited by Rob Ventura. Having been definitively sanctified , the Christian is being progressively sanctified , although not perfectly sanctified in this life. He or she will always...

Did you ever eat something so tasty that you had to close your eyes? If you haven't, try scallops. Imagine this mouth-watering mollusk: snow-white, pan-seared to perfection with a golden crust, a dash of salt, a pinch of pepper, a brush of butter, a spritz of lemon... delicious! And the texture is...

Back in 2005, Rick Warren—then hailed as "America's New People's Pastor" by Time magazine—made a revealing statement on his understanding of theology and doctrine: “The first Reformation was about doctrine; the second one needs to be about behavior. We need a reformation not of creeds but deeds. It...

The debates surrounding catholicity and theological retrieval do not seem to be slowing down any time soon. With all the back and forth about Thomas, Aristotle, and Van Til, one theological topic seems to be overlooked more often than others—namely, common grace . Often, the discussion of common...

Editor’s Note: This post has been adapted from a longer article set to be published in a forthcoming edition of the Puritan Reformed Journal. It will come as little surprise to many readers on this site that the state of theology in the contemporary North American church is fraught with weakness...

So far in our study of chapter 13 in the 1689 London Baptist Confession, we have seen how sanctification is properly both decisive at conversion and ongoing throughout life . Simply put, the Christian is holy, and is being made holy. In the second paragraph of the chapter, the Confession asserts...

Israel was envious. The nations around them had flesh-and-blood kings, while their ruler was only the eternal spirit-without-a-body Creator of the universe, Yahweh. The people obstinately demanded that God give them a king like all the other nations—and God, in a display of His immense patience,...

Spoiler alert: If you give a mouse a cookie, he’s going to ask for a glass of milk, a straw, a broom, crayons, and eventually another cookie . The lesson of the story is simply that actions have consequences, which then lead to new circumstances demanding new actions. Every effect becomes itself a...