Sovereignty

Quite a while ago, I met a woman with whom I had attended a particular church several years earlier. At the time of our meeting we were both worshiping in different congregations. In the midst of the conversation, having discovered that I was reformed in my theology, she informed me that she too...

God created various means by which He, a pure Spirit, could communicate with earthly, speaking creatures. The first was the Angel of the L ORD . When He appeared to God’s people, they were confused. An angel? Or the L ORD ? Hagar asked herself, “Is it possible that I have seen Him who sees me?” She...

When we speak of God as our Father, it is immediately plain that we are expressing a belief that is unique to the Judeo-Christian tradition. Of course, to the extent that other religious or philosophical systems maintain that the world owes its allegiance to some kind of deity, in a very general or...

It is in that well worn and wonderful passage of John chapter 3 where the apostle tells us that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. But previously in that very same chapter Jesus tells us that God must also...

“Do you know what would happen if the world suddenly stopped spinning?” I asked my kids during our morning Bible time. My 12-year-old consulted one of her favorite books What If: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions. 1 If the earth and all terrestrial objects...

One of the landmark documents of the Westminster Assembly of Divines (1643-1653) is the Confession of Faith. This confession was created to provide a doctrinal basis for unity across the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland. Although in God’s inscrutable providence the confession did...

Pastoral burnout is a significant problem in the church today. In the last article, I suggested that C.S. Lewis’s article, “First and Second Things” might be helpful in diagnosing the problem. Lewis said that when first things are eclipsed by second things both things are lost. In that first post,...

Faithful preachers and teachers in the Church have always looked for effective ways to communicate their points. The acronym TULIP, of course, is a device meant to communicate the core of the doctrine of human salvation. Like all pedagogical devices, it is not meant to explain everything that could...

Exuberant over an experience, an oh-so-sweet manifestation of divine providence, you delightedly seek to give God praise in telling your story. “It was such a ‘God thing’,” you proclaim. As you see it, God wove together an otherwise inexplicable combination of events to deliver a wonderful—even...

H aving considered John Knox's doctrine of predestination ( part 1 ) and how he related it the attributes of immutability and omniscience ( part 2 ), we now move specifically to election. Election Election for Knox was the “eternall and immutable counsell of God, in which he hath purposed to choose...