Church Polity

The Minister has been in the forefront of Protestant church leadership since the Reformers recovered the primacy of preaching as the means of creating and deepening faith, having dethroned the priest, who was seen by Rome as the central actor in sacrificing Christ anew. But the Reformation...

This week on Theology on the Go, our host, Dr. Jonathan Master is joined by Dr. Calvin L. Troup. Dr. Troup is the president of Geneva College (Beaver Falls, PA). Before becoming Geneva's twentieth President since 1848 Dr. Troup was Associate Professor and Director of the Rhetoric Ph.D. Program in...

Exuberant over an experience, an oh-so-sweet manifestation of divine providence, you delightedly seek to give God praise in telling your story. “It was such a ‘God thing’,” you proclaim. As you see it, God wove together an otherwise inexplicable combination of events to deliver a wonderful—even...

The Florentine Peter Martyr Vermigli (1499–1562) was among the most important of sixteenth century Protestant theologians. Among many enormous works is his massive commentary on 1 Corinthians. In this and the following posts, I wish to draw attention in particular to his comments on 1 Corinthians 1...

King James VI of Scotland (1566–1625) recorded his advice to Prince Henry (1594–1612), his son and heir, in a 1599 volume entitled Basilikon Doron , “The Royal Gift” (repr., 1887). Amidst other advice on how to operate effectively as a monarch, James warned his son against presbyterians, who had...

In the context of conforming more consistently to the Westminster Confession of Faith , our Session revisited re-baptism while studying sections 27:3 and 28:6-7, especially pondering these closing words: “The sacrament of baptism is but once to be administered unto any person.” This led us to...

The great Scottish theologian and preacher James Durham (1622-1658) published a monumental Commentarie Upon the Book of Revelation in 1658 extending over 1000 pages. John MacLeod stated that Durham’s work “gives what, in past days, was the accepted Protestant view of that book.” (MacLeod, Some...