The Spirit’s Role: Regeneration
Have you ever wanted a fresh start? Perhaps you fumbled in some area – a marriage, a parent-child relationship, a job – and you longed to reset. Or something happened…
Steven McCarthy
The Rev. Fr. Steven M. McCarthy is a member of the Diocese of All Saints in the Anglican Church in North America. He works as a hospice chaplain, and lives with his wife and four children in Lansing, Michigan.
Being a Pentecost Christian: The Gifts and the Gift
People love lists, from the Billboard Top 20, to 9-things-you-should-know-about-this, to 16-reasons-you-should-never-do-that. Perhaps this is why churches sometimes seem to obsess over lists of “spiritual gifts” (abilities the Spirit works…
Braving Hard Passages: I John 5:6
We have all had moments in conversation when we did not understand someone, and anyone who reads the Bible comes across texts they do not initially comprehend. Sometimes a person…
Westminster & Ordination: The Directory of Worship
Contemporary efforts to enrich public worship inevitably emphasize increased “congregational participation”. This may mean employing special music, or returning to set prayers in which congregation has a unison voice, but…
Calvin’s Life: Lessons from Geneva
John Calvin arrived in Geneva in June 1536.[1] He intended to stay one night. Fleeing from persecution in his homeland of France, he planned to take up a scholar’s life…
Luther’s Theology: The Sacraments
Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are signs of union (Rom 6:3-5) and communion (1Cor. 10:16) with Christ. As a result, they signify union (1Cor. 12:13) and communion among believers as…
Luther’s Life: Melanchthon, a Dear Friend
The name “Martin Luther” tends to conjure up solitary images. Whether he was pinning his 95 theses to the church door in Wittenberg, making speeches before an Imperial court at…
Bible Conferences: Helps in Holiness
I had been a professing believer for several years when I entered college, but I needed to learn holiness. As Christians, we always need to keep learning holiness, but it…
Meditating on the Word: Reading the Bible Devotionally
If you’ve been attending church, you have probably been encouraged to read your Bible devotionally, that is, privately, on a regular, daily basis. In your experience of the Bible, you’ve…
Confession and Pastoral Theology: Confession as Pastoral Promise
So the pastor of the church you attend says the church is “confessional”. He explains that this means the church requires its ministers, and perhaps even members, to subscribe to…
Confession and Orthodoxy: Confessional Identity
Ministering in a small, rural town with over ten churches, all with relatively low attendance, I have often heard the question, “What makes your church different?” I have found this…
Old Princeton: Benjamin B. Warfield and Seminary Education Today
During my first year of seminary, I took a required course titled “Spiritual Development”. Some question the inclusion of such a course in a program of formal theological study. After…