Marie Durand was born on July 15, 1711 in in the French village of Bouschet de Pranles. Largely unknown outside of France, she is remembered for her faithfulness to her faith while imprisoned for thirty-eight years in the Tower of…
Happy birthday, John Calvin! It’s been 508 years since you were born in your beloved France. How should we celebrate? If you were here, would you join us? The Enjoyment of God’s Gifts He would probably disapprove…
The book that started the “Marrow Controversy” was Edward Fisher’s The Marrow of Modern Divinity by Edward Fisher. It was first published in 1645 and 1649. In 1726, a new addition of the Marrow was published with the accompanying notes…
It was 1543. North of the Alps, Protestant reformers were busy publishing books. In Rome, the papacy was busy banning them. Still, the publishers in Venice, a proudly independent republic with a reputation of opposition to the pope, were persistent.…
The Bondage of the Will is one of Martin Luther’s most important and enduring works. It represents his greatest defense of the doctrine of predestination and was written as a response to Erasmus of Rotterdam. I have previously described the…
On June 28, 1586, the Slovenian Reformer Primož Trubar died in Derendingen, in the Holy Roman Empire. Almost unknown in the US, he is a national hero in Slovenia. His portrait has appeared on banknotes, coins, and postage stamps,…
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 members of Christ’s spiritual body (1Cor. 10:17). Yet these symbols…
Luther’s recovery of a Bible-centered Christianity led him to revise the worship liturgy to reflect this new theological orientation. His reordering of worship services gives us a glimpse of his theology of music, and from his own words, we see…
By the 19th century, the story of Lady Jane Grey, the young queen who succeeded Edward VI for less than two weeks, had already been heavily fictionalized, romanticized, politicized, and reinvented. The famous painting by Paul Delaroche, The Execution of…
In occasion of Father’s Day, I diverge from the usual mini-bios to peek into the lives of some fathers who lived during the Reformation, with all the struggles and joys this task embraced. Busy Homes Moving from the peaceful,…
