So what does it mean to pray like a Puritan? This is the subject of the book’s introduction and Elmer answers by saying that their aim was “neither casual nor perfunctory prayer. The prayers of the Puritans shook lives to the core, pled with a sovereign God for mercy, and praised him in the brightest... Continue Reading

Throughout the fifty years of Edith Cavell’s life, she was content to work hard and live humbly. She was a godly woman and, therefore, a godly historical example. The Bible instructs us to teach our children about such historical examples. Psalm 78:4 reads: “We will not hide them from their children, but tell to the coming... Continue Reading

Laughing at the Days to Come is a book about embracing and enduring life’s trials with divine joy. It is about gaining the kind of vision of that Proverbs 31 woman who can look into an unknown future and a long path of suffering and still rejoice. I think it’s fair to say that it’s... Continue Reading

Several “canons” (i.e., rules) were established by the first architects of this textual restoration project, but with the development of computer technology, a new approach to evaluating textual witnesses has been developed: The Coherence-Based Genealogical Method [CBGM]. In short, the CBGM is a computer-assisted model that enables text critics to observe and assess relationships between... Continue Reading

Machen was cut off in the midst of a great work — the establishment of Westminster Seminary and the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. He hadn’t set out to found a seminary or a new church. But given who he was and what he stood for and what was happening at Princeton, where he had taught for... Continue Reading

Bavinck had prepared the manuscript for publication, yet several formal issues may have held him back from publishing the work (RE, 2019; xxxv, xli-ii). Along with the manuscript’s discovery by Dirk van Keulen, two additional manuscripts from Bavinck’s students have been uncovered, providing invaluable insights into his classroom presentation and support for translation. The wealth... Continue Reading

“The call to exhort,” wrote Smith, “is the call to speak to the will of the hearer, not just to inform the mind of the hearer. It is pleading, persuading, and strongly urging the hearer to respond in obedience to the Word of God. It moves beyond suggested application into a definitive call to respond”... Continue Reading

Strange’s stated aim is to advance the argument that “while the Assembly may never have explicitly affirmed active obedience in what it finally adopted, nonetheless, the Westminster documents, taken as a whole, tend to affirm it” (2). He seeks to accomplish this by carefully considering both the original intent of the framers of the Westminster... Continue Reading

All the chapters in the volume are helpful, but the first two are the most foundational. In chapter one, Hurtado gives us the lay of the land by surveying the variety of other approaches to Jesus devotion within early Christianity, offering a brief critical review of each of them, so that his own approach can... Continue Reading

The long loneliness is seen in the woman who never had children in order to please a selfish husband, who then divorced her for a younger woman. It is there in the face of a sincere, but nerdy young man who can’t find a decent girl to marry or the faithful young woman who is... Continue Reading