While rereading Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol I recently read something I had forgotten. When Jacob Marley appeared to Scrooge his body was transparent, so that Scrooge could see not only the front of his long deceased partner’s waistcoat but…
Edmund Grindal and His Letter to the Queen In 1576, Archbishop Edmund Grindal joined the company of Puritans who offended Queen Elizabeth I. His most provocative statement was a reminder of her mortality. He was suspended from his duties…
The New Year is a time for lists. Top ten lists of this and top one hundred lists of that! So, at Place for Truth we decided to make our own list of tops. The first is a list of…
As a Presbyterian, I often find myself in attendance at the examination of our Seminary students. Our denominational seminary lies is within the borders of our presbytery, so we have a good number of students on an ongoing basis. Like…
All that the church is can be found in her union with Christ. As John Calvin has so memorably put it, “we must remember that as long as Christ remains outside of us, and we are separated from him,…
The closing chapters of the Old Testament are set against the looming ‘Dark Ages’ of Ancient Israel. God had spoken through his prophets and his people had persistently ignored his word and strayed from his ways – even after the…
Ralph Erskine (1685-1752) was born ten years after his mother Margaret was pronounced dead. The pronouncement had been mistaken, but she would have indeed been dead if a greedy sexton had not laid his eyes on her precious ring.…
Discussing the three marks of a true church during a seminary class (preaching the Word, administering the sacraments, and disciplining members), our professor emphasized the third by rhetorically asking, “How many true churches are there today?” His implication was, where…
Not all the 16th century Protestant Reformers agreed that church discipline should be considered one of the marks of a true church. Calvin, for example, spoke only of the pure preaching of the word and the right administration of…
One of the basic practices in the Christian life is prayer. It is a spiritual discipline that is instilled in us from our earliest days. It is uttered in private, in family devotions, and in various public settings for numerous…
