Creeds & Confessions

Just as bottles of distilled water offer drink that is free of poisonous chemicals and clogging minerals, so the Church’s confessions provide boiled-down, condensed, purified orthodoxy for healthy Body life systems. For instance, a seminary student being examined on the floor of Presbytery with...

Many doctrinally solid evangelical churches would not self-identify as “confessional”. What is the value of historic confessions for this kind of typical evangelical church? If the church is already doctrinally orthodox, evangelical, and solid, why encourage such people to think more “...

This week on Theology on the Go, Dr. Jonathan Master is joined by Dr. David Garner, vice president for advancement and associate professor of systematic theology at Westminster Theological Seminary. Dr. Garner has a wide variety of theological interests including the doctrine of adoption, the...

In today’s church, there are a number of significant questions about the doctrine of assurance. Some argue that you cannot ever really know if you’re saved at all; others insist that if you made some kind of profession of faith, then you ought never to doubt the reality of your salvation. The...

The Westminster Confession of Faith begins with one of the most well articulated statements concerning the doctrine of Scripture. And incorporated right into the Confession is an ever so brief clause on how one might do theology. The clause was placed there to be an expression defending the...

There are those who claim that the Westminster Confession of Faith is a scholastic document lacking in pastoral sensitivity but abounding in the dust of theological tomes. But is it? I don't think so. In fact, I am convinced that the Westminster Confession is both heady and hearty! That is to say,...

This week on Theology on the Go, Dr. Jonathan Master is joined by Dr. Chad Van Dixhoorn. Dr. VanDixhoorn is Associate Professor of Church History at Reformed Theological Seminary in Washington D.C.. He is also the author of an extensive study on the Westminster Assembly entitled, The Minutes and...

It is not uncommon for our church to receive protests for being careful adherents to the historic Westminster Standards; thus, I have developed a confessional apologetic that boils down to these modern proverbs: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!”; and, “Don’t try and reinvent the wheel!” B. B...

Sometimes Question 3 of the Westminster Shorter Catechism— “What do the Scriptures principally teach? The Scriptures principally teach what man is to believe concerning God and what duty God requireth of man”— is accused of cutting against the “Christ-centered” read of the Scriptures which the...

There is nothing more important than passing on the faith to the next generation. We live in a day and age where people who claim to be Christians and to “know Christ” actually know less and less of the basic teachings of Scripture. It continually evidences itself in the decline of Biblically...