Amandus Polanus on the Church’s Role in Interpreting Scripture
Roman Catholic authors denied the perspicuity of Scripture
“(Roman Catholic authors) appealed to the magisterium of the Church to provide authoritative interpretations of the Scriptures in light of church tradition. Protestants, by contrast, argued that was inherently clear because Scripture is profitable and sufficient for the ends that Scripture assigns to itself. Scripture authority and sufficiency both supposed and demanded perspicuity.” Sola... Continue Reading
Luther and His Significance
Why does Luther matter so much so long after his death? Because he realized that we are all beggars.
Probably few events in Luther’s life rival the representative status of the dedication service at Torgau. There we see a notable singularity of purpose. That singular purpose reveals Luther’s significance in both his day and, five hundred years later, in our day. That purpose may be expressed simply as the pure worship of the true God... Continue Reading
The Great-Grandfather of the Reformation
If Luther is the father of the Reformation, then it would be appropriate to say that John Hus was its grandfather, and John Wycliffe was its great-grandfather.
Wycliffe’s teachings were harbingers of the fuller Reformation to come. He viewed the Scriptures as the final authority for the Christian: “Forasmuch as the Bible contains Christ, that is all that is necessary for salvation; it is necessary for all men, not for priests alone. It alone is the supreme law that is to rule... Continue Reading
There Is No Spiritualizing This One
No spiritualizing seemed to fit into that humble parking spot.
I began to slip from irritation to worry. Maybe he’d had a heart-attack, or fell and hurt his head. I was somewhere between fret and panic, playing out the scenes, fearing the worst, waiting to hear an ambulance siren, when I like a bolt of lightening, I remembered….. And it came to pass in... Continue Reading
Philosophy Rebuts Key Barrier Between Science and Religion
It is not that observation and experience were irrelevant to Descartes; rather, his idea was that truths about the natural world should hold with the same degree of certainty as those of mathematics.
How did Descartes hit upon this conservation law? Not simply by observing nature. “In fact,” he points out, “it often happens that experience may appear to conflict with the rules I have just explained.” Descartes believed that the methodology of physics resembles mathematics more than the “scientific method” we learn in school — beginning not... Continue Reading
There’s Never Been a Better Time to Be a Christian
In the fight for morality, we have truth and Jesus on our side.
Original editor’s note: Campbell Markham is a Presbyterian minister in Australia. He delivered this address on September 7, 2017, at the Tasmanian launch of the Coalition for Marriage. Currently, Pastor Markham is defending himself against an anti-discrimination prosecution brought against him for his writings on marriage. What a mess our poor nation is in. There... Continue Reading
The First Lady in France
For Marie Dentière, the astonishing news of saving grace and the powerful message of equality before God were truths that had been suppressed by the Catholic Church and needed to be shouted from the housetops by anyone who had seen them for themselves in God’s word.
Far more than a historian, Marie Dentière was an articulate (if inflammatory) evangelist. She loved and revered the Bible, was distressed that the Catholic Church had withheld so much of it from the people, and preached that every person, including women, should be able to read God’s precious and glorious words for themselves. Born... Continue Reading
Did Martin Luther Invent “Justification” 500 Years Ago?
The Reformation put the puzzle pieces in place, but the pieces were there all along
The doctrine of justification doesn’t rest simply on a verb here or there. It is the whole teaching of the Scriptures that God will provide the sacrificial skins to cover our nakedness (Gen. 3:21). The whole sacrificial system of the Old Testament pointed forward to “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of... Continue Reading
Are the “Calvinist” Critics of Piper Really Calvinists At All?
Many of the arguments used to defend a Reformed doctrine of justification don’t seem very Reformed
Unlike many “Reformed” theologians today who view conditional or instrumental language with respect to good works as unorthodox or legalistic or outside the bounds of Reformed orthodoxy, Calvin unashamedly uses such language. When I was a student at Westminster Seminary, I spent a number of months studying the Norman Shepherd controversy which racked that... Continue Reading
Louise de Coligny – a Courageous Woman in Troubled Times
Louise’s life followed one of the most troubled times in European history - from the bloody St. Bartholomew’s Massacre to the creation of a new nation, the Netherlands, until the beginning of the Thirty-Years War.
In 1573 one of the most atrocious massacres in France took place, a spontaneous, unanimous attack that killed approximately 10,000 Huguenots – 2-3,000 in Paris alone. Gaspard de Coligny, Louise’s father, didn’t escape the fury. A group led by the Guise stormed into his room, pierced him with a sword, threw him off the window... Continue Reading
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