Broaden Your Horizons
What do you do when two parties within the same Reformed tradition approach the issues from such different perspectives that they end up seeing one another as the devil? In the previous article in our series on lessons from an…
Tag Love
Appeal for Help
The Presbyterians and the Congregationalists had an extremely difficult time working through their theological differences in the 1690s (see parts 1, 2, 3, 4). There are a number of reasons for this, some of which we have already considered, but…
Party Spirit
If a theological debate has been infected with personal animosity and filled with over the top accusations and charges, then you will mostly likely find a party spirit, which will only further enflame the controversy. Like everyone else, theologians do…
The Personal Side of Polemics
One of the striking yet sad features of the Antinomian-Neonomian debate of the 1690’s (see parts 1, 2) was the evident personal animosity towards Daniel Williams. Although John Flavel also wrote against Antinomianism, including some of the views of Tobias…
“God Broke the Law for Love”
Love will take you further than the law ever could. — Steven Furtick (@stevenfurtick) March 29, 2016 Thanks Todd Pruitt! Thanks for “sharing” this on Facebook last week! You ruined my weekend. Okay, that’s a bit…
Fellowship Revisited
Of all the Bible words that fall into the ‘used and abused’ category one ranks high among the most frequent casualties of them all. It is ‘fellowship’. The most glaring evidence of this is in the way churches – even…
The Christian’s Jugular
The best way to take down an opponent swiftly and decisively is to “go for the jugular.” This common idiom means to attack an enemy at his most vulnerable point and is derived from the fact that animals typically kill…
The Indispensible Mark of the Church
‘What are the marks of a true church?’ is a question that has quite rightly occupied the minds of theologians through the centuries, because the history of the church is littered with many bodies that have claimed to be churches,…