8 Properties of Scripture (by Mastricht)
The doctrine of Scripture has often been the battleground on which the fate of true and false religion is decided. In the seventeenth-century, Roman Catholics taught the authority of Scripture,…
Ryan McGraw
Book Review: Richard Hooker and Reformed Orthodoxy
W. Bradford Littlejohn and Scott N. Kindred-Barnes, eds., Richard Hooker and Reformed Orthodoxy, vol. 40, Reformed Historical Theology (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2017). 355pp. Hardcover. Historic Reformed orthodoxy was marked…
William Ames: Saving Faith and Theology
Theology is the doctrine of living to God. More specifically, we live to God, through Christ, by the Holy Spirit. How we define theology determines how we study theology. If…
Peter van Mastricht on the Definition of Theology
For many, theology has a dry and arid connotation. For others, theology is the necessary objective backdrop for understanding the teaching of the Bible as a whole. For Peter van…
Peter van Mastricht on Keeping Your Faith in Seminary
I recently discovered a book on how not to lose your faith in seminary. As I read the book description, I simultaneously understood the reality of the temptation that the…
Why Should Pastors Read Peter van Mastricht?
I have been warmly commending, Peter van Mastricht’s Theoretico-Practica Theologia for a decade. However, students have wondered whether my promises that someone was translating it into English were empty. Now…
Review of Gamble’s Christ and the Law
Whitney G. Gamble, Christ and the Law: Antinomianism at the Westminster Assembly (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 2018). This series of books introduces readers to historical figures and…
Leiden Synopsis and the Divine Attributes (2)
Communicable and Incommunicable Attributes and Divine Affections Why does it seem like no two lists of the divine attributes are identical? The previous post showed that part of the reason…
Leiden Synopsis and the Divine Attributes (1)
Standard Questions, Incomprehensibility, and Simplicity God is incomprehensible. This means that he is always beyond us. The heaven of heavens cannot contain him (1 Kings 8:27; 2 Chron. 2:6; 6:18),…
A Series of Unfortunate Ideas? The Use and Abuse of Scholastic Theology
I have often noted in conversation that “scholasticism” is a bad word with bad connotations for many people. However, it has also become a strange word that does strange things…
Book Review: Some Pastors and Teachers (Banner of Truth)
Sinclair B. Ferguson, Some Pastors and Teachers: Reflecting a Biblical Vision of What Every Minister Is Called to Be. Banner of Truth, 2017. 796pp. Hardcover. Interest in Puritanism has…
Francis Turretin on Fundamental Articles
What is the minimum requirement for a sound Christian profession of faith? The answer to this question is as difficult as it is important. Some churches have tried to push…