Modern readers often filter “separation of church and state” through a secularist lens—assuming it means the government must be entirely stripped of all religious influence and pretend God does not exist, granting unrestricted free exercise to all false, non-Christian religions. This was not the view of the 1788 American divines. The revised Confession still maintains... Continue Reading

The civil power is to serve the church as a guardian of liberty and a hedge against violence, not as an umpire of doctrine and practice who can even eject players from the ecclesial arena. When we compare these passages on the civil magistrate, we do not find “sorta, kinda” the same thing—they are altogether... Continue Reading

“The moderate, catholic and irenic character of the Westminster Confession has always made it a unifying document. Framed as an irenicon, it bound at once the Scotch and English churches together. It was adopted, and continues to be used by many Congregational and Baptist churches as the confession of their faith, been made the basis of... Continue Reading

Creeds do not rival Scripture, and they cannot improve upon it. They function as guardrails precisely because Scripture alone stands as the final authority. Every confession, council, and theological opinion must be examined by the Word of God and corrected by it. The Three Forms of Unity — the confessional standards of the continental Reformed... Continue Reading

Modern people often forget what an ancient world is like. There are no printing presses. No email. No overnight shipping. Letters must be copied by hand. Communities are scattered across the Roman world. Persecution is real. Communication is slow. So it should not surprise anyone that universal, explicit “lists” emerge later than the books themselves.... Continue Reading

“Read the Bible, preach the Bible, pray the Bible, sing the Bible, and see the Bible.”   The Gospel affects the entire life of a believer, and the same is true for a body of believers that comprise a local church. Churches, and all that they do, should have a particular Gospel focus. From the... Continue Reading

The 52nd General Assembly approved Overture 26, which instructs the study committee to “propose revisions to portions of the ‘Directory for the Worship of God’ not yet given full authority, in accordance with Scripture and the Westminster Standards, for authoritative use in the Presbyterian Church in America.” The overture includes instructions to use the Directories... Continue Reading

“He shall lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering, and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him.”   What would you do if you survived the apocalypse and were one of only a handful of people left on the planet? Plenty of fiction has been produced exploring that... Continue Reading

Pastors who subscribe to the Chicago Statement are technically not able to hold up any printed edition of the Hebrew Old Testament, or the Greek New Testament, or any vernacular translation, and declare to the congregation, “This is the inspired, infallible, and inerrant Word of God,” because they have no way to verify it by... Continue Reading

Famine will not have the final word. God promises that He will restore His people. “I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter, my great army, which I sent among you” (Joel 2:25). Don’t miss that God sent the devouring locusts. Perhaps that’s... Continue Reading