Westminster Larger Catechism

B ack in November 2017 I did a review of Wallace Marshall’s Puritanism and Natural Theology (Pickwick, 2016) in which he argued for a robust natural theology in the Puritans and one foundational to their doctrine of supernatural theology. Marshall identifies natural theology for them as “all...

We often pray the fifth petition of the Lord’s Prayer after sinning. We should learn to pray the sixth petition before similarly sinning again, remembering, ye have not because ye ask not (James 4:2). The essence of the sixth petition, And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil (...

A nswering the question, “What is Puritan Theology?” may sound too much like attempting to define Puritanism, a slippery term that evades a crisp definition or at least agreement on one. Indeed, there exists a great deal of overlap between Puritanism and Puritan Theology, but I hope to add a little...

The best doctors are diagnosticians. Those who have hidden the taxonomy of pathogens in their cerebral cortex and are able to ply their knowledge to the often distorted complex of a patient’s woes – that, is a doctor indeed. The best of the Puritans were the best of spiritual doctors. Let’s imagine...

A back you may have seen ads for or even seen the movie "Invictus" starring Morgan Freeman. In the trailer we hear in the background Freeman as Nelson Mandella saying, “I am the master of my fate: 
I am the captain of my soul.” Those words come from the poem "Invictus" by the nineteenth-century...

T hink about the last time you issued a challenge. It took a lot of confidence, didn’t it? Not only did you challenge someone else to do something, you challenged yourself to do the same. How much confidence would you need to be able to stand up in the midst of the world with the devil and his...

N o doubt Simon Peter’s most memorable words were those of his great confession in response to Jesus’ question, “Who do you say that I am? You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matt. 16:15-16). That’s a Bible verse to memorize, isn’t it? What we don’t often realize, though, is what Jesus...

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...