“To take no pleasure in assertions is not the mark of a Christian heart; indeed, one must delight in assertions to be a Christian at all. (Now, lest we be misled by words, let me say here that by ‘assertions’ I mean staunchly holding your ground, stating your position, confessing it, defending it and persevering in it unvanquished. . . . And I am talking about the assertion of what has been delivered to us from above in the Sacred Scriptures.”(Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will)What is an “Argument”?By “assertions” Martin Luther means arguments. It was his Biblically-inf... [read more]

add to discussion

or create a new discussion:

On January 5, 1877, Henry Sloane Coffin was born in Manhattan. Educated at Yale and at Union Seminary in New York, Coffin pastored Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church from 1905 to 1926, when he became president of Union Seminary, where he served until 1946.Coffin "loved New York and accepted the patrician responsibility of advancing its welfare," according to historian Bradley Longfield. A self-proclaimed "liberal evangelical," Coffin was a prominent voice in the liberal New York Presbytery throughout the Presbyterian controversy in the early twentieth-century, and he defended the Presbytery... [read more]

add to discussion

or create a new discussion:

A sound . . . came from heaven . . . they saw . . . The gift had to be visible, so that the disciples might be roused through their physical senses. We are so slow to think about the gifts of God that unless he wakes up all our senses, his power passes away without our noticing. These physical signs prepared the disciples to understand more clearly that the Spirit Christ had promised had now come.John Calvin commenting on Acts 2:2–3During my years as a Pentecostal, praying for the “Holy Ghost and fire” to come was common. Typically the prayer would be for the uninitiated to receive th... [read more]

add to discussion

or create a new discussion:

On January 3, 1898, Robert Lewis Dabney died in Victoria, Texas.Born in Louisa County, Virginia, in 1820, Dabney studied at Hampden-Sidney College, the University of Virginia, and Union Seminary in Virginia. He pastored Tinkling Spring Presbyterian Church for six years before serving on the faculty of Union Seminary from 1859 to 1883 (interrupted by service as a chaplain in the Confederate army during the Civil War). For health reasons he later moved to Texas, where he served eleven years on the faculty of Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary. After his death, Dabney's body was shipped ... [read more]

add to discussion

or create a new discussion:

Greg Peters at The Scriptorium provides a fascinating analysis of Dante's Ante-Purgatory found in the Divine Comedy. Here's how it begins . . . For many Protestant Christians today the doctrine of Purgatory (especially in its medieval articulation) is blatantly wrong. The need for such a place is mainly the result of the medieval concepts of debt, penalty and merit (of Christ and the saints). To a medieval theologian Purgatory was necessary, even desirable. Thus, when Dante Alighieri went about writing his Divine Comedy, it was only natural that it would be set in three geographical locatio... [read more]

add to discussion

or create a new discussion:

On December 28, 1797, Charles Hodge was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.After graduating from the College of New Jersey and Princeton Seminary, Hodge was ordained by the Presbytery of New Brunswick in 1821, and the General Assembly appointed him to the Princeton faculty in 1822. For the next 56 years he trained over 3,000 students at Princeton, including two of his sons who would eventually join the faculty. In 1825 he founded the Princeton Review and throughout the course of his career he would use it to publish on all the major theological controversies of his day, defending Reformed o... [read more]

add to discussion

or create a new discussion:

On December 20, 1560, the first General Assembly of the Church of Scotland convened in Edinburgh.Under the leadership of John Knox, six ministers and 36 elders gathered to deliberate on and eventually to present for the approval of the Scottish Parliament the Book of Discipline, drafted earlier in that year. Although this work would be superseded by the Second Book of Discipline by 1578, the greater significance of the 1560 gathering was its establishment of the Presbyterian pattern of annual meetings of commissioners from each presbytery. This conciliar system of church government finds it... [read more]

add to discussion

or create a new discussion:

Paul declares in Romans 14:23 that “whatever is not from faith is sin.” Here’s the dilemma: An unbeliever sees a child drowning in the river. In response, he dives in and saves her. Was this a good act?Consider Paul’s teaching regarding obedience to the civil government in the previous chapter: 1) Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. 2) Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves. 3) For... [read more]

add to discussion

or create a new discussion:

On December 16, 1714, revivalist and evangelist George Whitefield was born in Gloucester, England.Trained initially as an actor, Whitefield was educated at Pembroke College in Oxford and ordained in 1736. At the invitation of John and Charles Wesley, Whitefield traveled to North America in 1739, where he quickly became the best-known figure in the Great Awakening. His fervent open-air preaching " filled with colloquial phrases, dramatic pauses, and vivid word pictures " met with remarkable success.Whitefield's practice of itinerant preaching furthered tensions within colonial Presbyterianis... [read more]

add to discussion

or create a new discussion:

Retiring Netherlands bishop Tiny Muskens (not to be confused with any inhabitants of Middle Earth) offered the following proposal to the religious world:"Allah is a very beautiful word for God. Shouldn't we all say that from now on we will name God Allah? ... What does God care what we call him? It is our problem.”Drawing upon their centuries-old tradition of dealing ruthlessly with heretics, Rome responded with a scathing rebuke . . ."I'm sure his intentions are good but his theology needs a little fine-tuning.”Harsh words.Meanwhile, in Our Own BackyardFresh off their recent triumphs o... [read more]

add to discussion

or create a new discussion: