Preaching Christ: the Hope of Redemption
It can be easy to become atomistic in the way we handle the Bible. By this I mean that we can unwittingly break its message down into its component parts in a way that fails to appreciate its organic unity.…
Tag Creeds & Confessions
The Apostles’ Creed: Ascended & Seated
The phrase in the Apostle’s Creed, “He ascended into heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty” is packed with theological importance. Early on we learned that this creed was written to combat the theological deviance…
Preaching Christ: as the essence of God’s Revelation
Every preacher knows – at least in some sense – that we are called to ‘preach Christ’ as we expound the Scriptures. We heard it in our homiletics classes in Seminary and we’ve been challenged about it in the numerous…
Study and Preaching
I am not sure where I first heard this wisdom, but I have heard it several times: a pastor does not need an office, he needs a study. Spot on. The bulk of pastoral work is not management behind a…
Anne Cooke Bacon – Patron of Puritan Preachers
Anne Cooke Bacon – Patron of Puritan Preachers Anne Cooke Bacon made her mark on the Church of England in 1563, when she translated John Jewel’s Apologia Ecclesiae Anglicanae, which became a statement of faith for the Church of…
Union with Christ: The Westminster Confession
For English Reformed Orthodoxy, the doctrine of a believer’s union with Christ was paramount. John Owen, enunciating the centrality of a believer’s union, exclaimed that our union with Christ is the “principle and measure of all spiritual enjoyments and…
The Theological Logic of Worship
There once was a time – within living memory for many of us – when you could go to a place of worship and have a reasonable sense of what to expect during a service and not be taken aback…
Brilliana Harley – Wife, Mother, and Fighter
In March 1643, Lady Brilliana Harley received a formal demand to surrender her castle to the royalists. Her husband, Sir Robert Harley, was in London. He had been there since the start of the civil war, leaving her to…
Sarah Miller and Her Secret Turmoil
When Samuel Miller married Sarah Sergeant, he didn’t know the extent of her pain. Emotional anguish and religious skepticism were not a proper topic of discussion. At least, that’s what her mother had taught her. She had told her…
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 for this is that God is an incomprehensible and simple…