Judges 9 presents the story of Abimelech, Gideon’s son. This is a relatively unfamiliar story. It is never taught in Sunday School and it is not a very popular topic for preaching. This is possibly because it is so gruesome, so horribly sad, and because it seems to have no redeeming value. It is a […]
After his extended treatment of the doctrine of revelation and the distinction between general and special revelation, Bavinck concludes his introductory volume in Reformed dogmatics with a consideration of the doctrine of Scripture. The inscripturation of special revelation represents the provision within God’s providence of a permanent and fixed form of revelation. Just as the […]
“But as for me, I trust in You, O God. I say, You are my God. My times are in Your hand.” (Psalm 31:14, 15) The days of 2008 are past. There are some days in the past year that I wish I could call back and have last forever. There are also days that […]
One of the most prominent figures in the New Testament is the apostle Paul, a dynamic Christian missionary and the author of thirteen epistles, who had once been a distinguished Jewish rabbi. When he became acquainted with the claim of Jesus to be the long-awaited Messiah, he initially reacted negatively and began persecuting people who […]
Prepare to meet the great enemy of your soul. In the Old Testament he is called Satan. How fitting is his name: it means “adversary,” “accuser.” Satan is an adversary; he is as an adversary to God and His people. He is an accuser, even accusing the Lord God Himself. You may remember his accusation […]
IT WAS Luther’s great assistant in the Reformation, Philip Melanchthon, himself an able teacher and theologian, who called Calvin The Theologian. Another of Calvin’s contemporaries, the learned Joseph Scaliger (1520-1609), echoed Melanchthon’s sentiment when he said: “Calvin stands alone among the theologians.” Speaking of Calvin’s Institutes, a sixteenth century Hungarian reformer said that, apart from […]
Contemporary American Protestantism has its discontents. Two ex-Protestants, both well-known sons of famous Protestant ministers, have expressed their disenchantment in prominent books. In 2007, Frank Schaeffer wrote, Crazy for God. This autobiography is as colorful as its subtitle, “How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to […]
Gideon had come a long way since Judges 6:11. When we first met him, he was a timid Israelite threshing his grain in a winepress for fear of the Midianites. When we last left him in Judges 8, he was an angry man killing Zebah and Zalmunna, the two Midianite princes, and destroying two Israelite […]
Synod rejects the errors of those: 9. Who teach that there is a separate and final justification grounded partly upon righteousness or sanctity inherent in the Christian (HC 52; BC 37). The medieval church accepted the premise that God can only declare one righteous if that one is actually, intrinsically, inherently, righteous. According to the […]