“But as for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, too little to be among the clans ofJudah, from you One will go forth for Me to be ruler in Israel. His goings forth are from long ago, from the days of eternity.” Micah 5:2 When the wise men came in those early months following the birth of Jesus, they […]
In the first two articles in this series we attempted to define a Protestant as a western Christian (as opposed to Eastern Orthodoxy) who is self-consciously out of fellowship with the Bishop of Rome but belongs to a Protestant church. This means that Protestantism emerged in the West, not in the East where the Orthodox […]
In addition to general revelation, which is mediated through the creation itself and the history of all things under God’s sovereign dominion, Bavinck insists that the Triune God has revealed himself from the beginning of history also by way of special revelation. Supernatural revelation did not commence with the Fall into sin, but was a […]
Readings: Judges 6 In Judges 6, Israel had again fallen into sin, resulting in the LORD handing them over to the Midianites. For seven years the Israelites toiled under Midianite captivity. The Midianites took everything-all the crops, sheep, and donkeys. Verse 5 describes the Midianites as locusts; continuously plaguing the Israelites much like the locusts […]
Readings: Judges 7–8:22 Judges 7:1–23 tells us of the crucial conflict between Midian and Israel within the story of Gideon. In the passages preceding Judges 7, God called Gideon to deliver Israel from the Midianites. Gideon performed a few acts of holy vandalism (destroying his father’s idols) and summoned the people of Asher, Naphtali, and […]
One of the great misconceptions about the Western church before the Reformation and therefore about the Reformation reaction to it is that the medieval church taught “salvation by works” or, more precisely, “justification by works” whereas the Reformation taught “salvation by grace” or, more precisely, “justification by grace.” There are a couple of reasons why […]