Reformed Christian Studies

By Bruce Gore - Posted at YouTube : Direct Link:  18. A Crisis in Mecklenburg (4/3/2022) - YouTube

 By Rev. Brian Schwertley - Posted at Sermon Audio: Direct Link:  Apostasy: Can Real Christians Fall Away, Part 1 | SermonAudio

 By Pastor Benjamin Glaser - Posted at Thoughts from Parson Farms : Seeing the Beauty of the Totality of the Lord's Providence in Creation Good Morning! Today as the divines open our eyes to see the depth of how God works in history and why He does what He does there is an opportunity here to put a plug in for something we are going to begin to do at Bethany ARP Church on Sunday evenings beginning Sunday November 13th. As we close out Ruth the week before we are then going to start a new series in our second service on the Lord’s Day where we’re going to mainly work through this portion of the Larger Catechism. Gaining a better sense of how God operates in His works of predestination and election, and how that plays out in His providence is vital to dealing with the day-to-day troubles we face as believers living in a sin-soaked world. For those of you unable to attend at that time of night for whatever prudential reason they will be recorded and placed on our YouTube channel. So a

 By Danny Hyde - Posted at Reformation21: Back in 2005, Rick Warren—then hailed as "America's New People's Pastor" by Time magazine—made a revealing statement on his understanding of theology and doctrine: “The first Reformation was about doctrine; the second one needs to be about behavior. We need a reformation not of creeds but deeds. It’s time to stop debating the Bible and start doing it... This is the new reformation I’m praying for.” Sadly, what used to be a hallmark attitude of Protestant liberalism has since become a fit-for-Hallmark platitude of many so-called Bible-believing evangelicals. This stance is precisely what J. Gresham Machen so masterfully refuted in his classic, Christianity and Liberalism . To pit doctrine against duty, theology against community, or faith against life is unbiblical. For example, Paul spoke of "the truth, which accords with godliness" ( Titus 1:1 ). This is why our forefathers defined theology as theologia est doctri

 By John Hartley - Posted at Place for Truth: Young children love family reunions more than the adults who host them. Children are focused on who will be there, who will they play with, who will tell the best story, who will remember their name, who will lift them high off the ground to say, “Look how big you are!” It is good we start life as children, we might never learn joy otherwise. Psalm 122 reminds the whole church it is our calling to be the joy-filled children of God. “I was glad when they said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the LORD!’” (v.1). To us belongs the joy that comes from leaving the world behind and going home to the Lord. Together. Like the other Psalms of Ascent (120-134), Psalm 122 is a pilgrim psalm. It is sung by a congregation on the move. A congregation ascending the mountain of God. A congregation of happy festive children, whose happiness lies not behind in a world that is passing away, but ahead and above, in the Jerusalem above, her true and forever hom

By Bruce Gore - Posted at YouTube: Direct Link:  17. Colonial Crossroads (3/27/2022) - YouTube

 By Pastor Benjamin Glaser - Posted at Thoughts from Parson Farms : How God's Unique Creation Helps Us to Adore Him in Love I was going to send this out yesterday, but the wifi in the Windhoek Airport was non-existent, so sending it this morning from Frankfurt instead. :) Today in our lesson from the Larger Catechism we are continuing to learn about the nature of God’s grace in His work of making all things of nothing. I think sometimes we gloss over just how incomprehensible it is that our Lord has taken that which does not exist and made it to be. The very fact you are reading this and I am typing this is wholly because God is God and we are not. Our totality is dependent on the nature of Jehovah. It’s part of why we must be obedient unto Him in love. We owe everything to Him and as Stephen Charnock makes clear we become practical atheists when we sin primarily because we act as if we can live without and against the world He has made. That is why it is vital for the Christian to

 By Dewey Roberts - Posted at Vanguard Presbyterian Church: How large were the churches in the New Testament? What was the membership of the church at Corinth? Or at Ephesus? Or at Rome? Or even at Antioch or Jerusalem? Do we know? Do we have any way to know? The Scripture never really gives us that information. We know that there were 3,000 people converted to Christ at the Feast of Pentecost, but they represented many different regions and countries—from Parthia, Media, Elam, Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, Libya, Cyrene, and Rome. That is a very large geographical area represented by the converts. We know that there were about 120 believers who gathered in the Upper Room after Jesus’ resurrection. There were over 500 people who saw Jesus ascend into heaven 40 days after His resurrection. There were about 5,000 men who believed as a result of Peter’s second sermon in Jerusalem. Many of those were probably Jews who lived in Jerusalem or Israel

 By Jeffrey Stivason - Posted at Place for Truth : Reading the Psalms can be or should I say ought to be existential. In other words, we should be able to experience through the Psalmist. We ought to be able to read a Psalm and say, “That describes where I am!” The Psalms, unlike other portions of Scripture, are supposed to function in that way. They actually invite us in. Yes, it is true that all of the Psalms are historical but not all of the Psalms supply the reader with that geographical and temporal context. For example, Psalm 3 is written by David when he fled from Absalom but Psalm 112 has no such context. Psalm 120 is like that. However, Psalm 120 does have a function in the life of ancient Israel. It was one of the fifteen psalms titled the Psalms of Assent. These were Psalms taken by the pilgrim on their journey to Jerusalem. What is more, this collection of Psalms does provide us with a sense of movement. For instance, in Psalm 120 the Psalmist starts his journey far awa

 By Barry Waugh The Old and New Sides are not the same as the Old and New Schools . From 1741-1758, Presbyterians in the American Colonies were divided into the Old and New Sides. The Old Side was the Synod of Philadelphia; the New Side separated from it along with non-affiliated ministers to become the Synod of New York. The published minutes source used for the current post was issued by the Old School as Records of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America…1706 to…1788 , Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1841. It includes the Old Side records, “The Minutes of the Synod of Philadelphia, from A. D. 1717-1758” and the New Side records, “Minutes of the Synod of New York, from A. D. 1745 to 1758.” Why do the New Side minutes begin in 1745 rather than 1741 when the division took place? Because it was not until then that the New Side organized its synod which would come to encompass the presbyteries of New York, New Castle, and New Brunswick with the most influ

By Bruce Gore - Posted at YouTube : Source:  16. The 'Wheels' of Colonial Vision (3/20/2022) - YouTube

Direct Link:  The New Perspective on Paul | SermonAudio

 By Pastor Benjamin Glaser - Posted at Thoughts from Parson Farms: The Electing Love of God For Men and Women Good Morning! Today’s lesson is the first example of what I would call the “expansive nature” of the Larger Catechism. It’s not just that the WLC contains more stuff than the WSC, but the WLC is interested in broadening our understanding of what each of the parts of our faith means for our faith in total. Having studied the attributes of God and how the Trinity operates within itself the next step in the learning process is to see the way Jehovah works in His creation to do His will and as we see in the Q/A for this week the questions themselves almost take up our space: Q. 12. What are the decrees of God? A. God’s decrees are the wise, free, and holy acts of the counsel of His will, whereby, from all eternity, He has, for His own glory, unchangeably foreordained whatsoever comes to pass in time, especially concerning angels and men. Q. 13. What has God especially decreed conce

 By Simonetta Carr - Posted at Place for Truth : In A.D. 202, Emperor Septimius Severus tightened his measures against Christians who refused to pay homage to the imperial genius, the spirit of the emperor. Compliance required a minimal effort: a simple sprinkling of a few grains of incense on a brazier before an imperial image. Those who conformed received a certificate that protected them from harassment. For many Christians, that was not an option. It was not an option for Vibia Perpetua, a 22-year-old noblewoman and mother of a nursing child. In the winter of 203, she was arrested with other Christians, including four new converts who, like her, had been catechized in preparation for baptism. Among these were two of Perpetua’s brothers and an enslaved young woman named Felicitas, who was eight-months pregnant. The new converts were baptized while in prison. They lived in Theourba, a small town about 30 miles from Carthage – one of the greatest centers of ear

 By Jeffrey Stivason - Posted at Place for Truth : The Psalms of Ascent is a collection of Psalms in the Psalter. There are other collection or groupings of Psalms. This collection is not unique in that sense. However, this collection was a well-worn collection. This dog-eared collection was taken by pilgrims to Jerusalem three times per year on their pilgrimage, hence the title, Psalms of Ascent. These pilgrims were going up to Jerusalem! Some have viewed the 15 Psalms that make up this collection (Psalms 120-134) as the fifteen steps leading up to the temple in Jerusalem. [1] What is more, this series of Psalms is finely structured. Psalm 127 is the middle Psalm leaving seven on either side. This middle Psalm is the only one in the collection written by Solomon. It is as familiar as it is loved. This is the Psalm that reminds us that “unless the Lord builds the house, those how build labor in vain.” Advice Solomon himself should have paid close attention to during his reign. Y

By Bruce Gore - Posted at YouTube : Source:  15. Abased and Abounding (3/6/2022) - YouTube

  Posted at Sermon Audio on December 21, 2009 Source: https://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=1220092346504

 By Pastor Benjamin Glaser - Posted at Thoughts from Parson Farms: Understanding How the Triune God is One and Three Good Morning! Well. The questions this week are not for the faint of heart. There are some big words, big concepts, and some big personal properties that are going to need some explaining, and to be frank it’s not going to be the easiest thing to do in the space of this Thursday catechism helper, however, the beauty of the doctrine of the Trinity is that it is more than worth our time to take as big and as flavorful a bite as we can. The glory of God is so vast that it will take an eternity in Heaven to grasp, yet so simple that the childlike faith Christ calls us to have is more than sufficient to gain much for our day-to-day to help us as we face whatever is going on in our lives. So, without much more ado here are the questions and answers from the Larger Catechism for today: Q. 10. What are the personal properties of the three persons in the Godhead? A. It is proper

 By Rev. Brian Schwertley - Posted at Reformed Online: Chapter1: Rejection of Justification by Faith Alone Introduction In the conservative Reformed world there has been a controversy raging since 2002 due to the introduction of a new theological paradigm called the “Auburn Avenue theology,” the“federal vision,” the “Monroe doctrine,” or, “the objectivity of the covenant.”1 On one side of the debate are people who argue that this new teaching is a breath of fresh air, a clarifying and reforming doctrine, another legitimate stream of Reformed covenantal thought. On the other side are an increasing number of pastors, elders and scholars who are warning people that this new doctrine is dangerous and heretical. In the middle is a large group of people who are not sure what they think because: a) they have not had time to study the issues; b) the new teachings are difficult to understand; c) the people who are advocating these new doctrines are popular Reformed writers and speakers known fo

Source:  Live Q&A on Final Justification & Mark Jones - YouTube

By Bruce Gore - Posted at YouTube: Source:  14. A Tale of Two Jonathans (2/27/2022) - YouTube