There is an alternative to the Gnosticism and Marcionism of Modern American Christianity. It is the Reformed confession. It seeks to be biblical, ecumenical (or catholic – that is, adhering the ancient ecumenical or catholic creeds – for example, the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, the Definition of Chalcedon andContinue Reading
One sometimes reads people who suggest that the Christian faith and gospel more or less disappeared after the apostles, only to be partially recovered in the Reformation and more fully recovered in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The Epistle to the Philippians, which is thoroughly theological and Christ-focused, refutes anyContinue Reading
Jesus introduced the Lord’s Supper at a solemn time, the Passover meal on the night before His death. Paul shows its solemnity in the warnings he gives to those who would participate in the supper in 1 Corinthians 11:17–34. Paul is concerned that Christians in the Corinthian church are notContinue Reading
Recently, I read Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations for the first time—a bracing read in a weighty and contentious season. Likely written around the 170s, the material later published as Meditations probably wasn’t meant for public consumption. Marcus Aurelius (Roman Emperor from 161–180 AD) kept the journal, a collection of short mentalContinue Reading
Every Christian should be reading First Peter right now. Of course, all of Scripture is always relevant is profitable. But Peter’s words are powerfully applicable to us today. Why is that? Peter writes to instruct God-fearing saints in how they should conduct themselves in a godless society, as citizens livingContinue Reading
There are, in the Reformed world, broadly, three approaches to church planting: To reach the lost To gather the Reformed To harvest the Reforming Of course, these three goals are not hermetically sealed from the others, but, typically, church-planting works prioritize one of them. For some, the priority is reachingContinue Reading
As more and more scholars re-examine the data, the story of a Reformation that wholly ignored mission is being replaced by one in which the “Reformation as a whole was mission”, to borrow historian Scott Hendrix’s lapidary phrase. By way of example, consider Peter Martyr Vermigli (1499-1562), for whom theContinue Reading
There are two truths that have to be acknowledged in this discussion at the outset: Sunday, the Lord’s Day, is the Christian Sabbath. God’s Word grounds the Sabbath principle not in the Mosaic legislation (i.e., in the judicial or ceremonial laws) but in creation. The Old Covenant, Mosaic, Sabbath has expired,Continue Reading
Pastor Chris Coleman of Peace United Reformed Church of Vancouver, WA interviews Dr R. Scott Clark on why Reformed churches worship twice on Sundays. Watch the interview on YouTube. Questions: 1. 3:22 Make the case, from the Word of God, that Christians should worship twice on the Lord’s Day. 2.Continue Reading
Deep down, we’re all intrigued by the mystical. Many find it to be more “spiritual” if they experience something working powerfully and inexplicably upon them. This, no doubt, is partially the reason why charismatic views of the Holy Spirit prevailed throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. There is everything rightContinue Reading