Reformed Christian Studies

By Simonetta Carr - Posted at Place for Truth: Many of us have heard the story of the sixteen-year-old girl who walked 25 miles to buy a Bible with the money she had saved while doing chores. That girl was Mary Jones, and her destination was a church at Bala, Wales, where a shipment of Welsh Bibles had just arrived. Mary’s story has been repeated several times, sometimes embellished by additional details. While walking miles was not entirely unusual in her day, Mary’s burning desire to own a Bible and her persistence in achieving her goal was so impressive that it inspired the birth of the Bible Society both in Wales and in the rest of the world. Mary’s Youth and Schooling Mary Jones was born in 1784 at Tyn-y-ddôl, Wales, to a couple of weavers: James and Mary (Molly), both early members of the Calvinistic Methodist church in the village of Abergynolwyn, two miles from their home. When James died, Molly raised young Mary on her own. The girl’s interest in the Bi

 By Kyle E. Sims - Posted at Gentle Reformation: Confessional Christianity can bring people to a stronger walk with Jesus. Growing up in a non-confessional church left me ignorant and spiritually malnourished. The churches I grew up in lacked a unified theological understanding. After I asked a question at 13 years old, someone finally explained the doctrine of the Trinity to me. I read my Bible, but I only got a hit-or-miss idea about the central doctrines of our faith. In the Fall of 1994, I took a class with Dr. Morton Smith on Reformed Theology. He did not lecture but read the Confession and Catechisms and explained their teaching. During this semester, the Lord answered the theological questions I had been wrestling with since childhood. Now I had a foundation, and my spiritual life began to grow. It is surprising and saddening that many are unfamiliar with our Confession and Catechisms. Many churches have replaced the Shorter Catechism with the Children’s Catechism, and many chur

Posted at This Day in Presbyterian History : Home Religion was an Important Part of Colonial Presbyterianism With tens of thousands of Scots–Irish Presbyterians coming to Cumberland County of Pennsylvania, various Presbyterian churches were organized in the seventeen-hundreds through0out central Pennsylvania. One such congregation was Big Spring Presbyterian Church in Newville, just west of Carlisle. After several pastors filled the pulpit at Big Spring on a temporary basis, a call was finally extended on March 21, 1787 to the Samuel Wilson, with the prayer that he would serve as their full-time pastor. The young man must have shown great promise, for he was not yet even ordained! But after passing his ordination exams at the Presbytery of Donegal, Rev. Wilson was installed as pastor on June 20, 1787. It was said that his pastorate was one of activity and prosperity for the congregation. He labored there at Big Spring for thirteen years—until 1799. Evidently, Rev. Wilson pos

By Rev. David T. Myers - Posted at This Day in Presbyterian History : Today in Presbyterian History we celebrate the birth of Gilbert Tennent. Subscribers to our posts will remember his name and history as the celebrated pastor-evangelist of the First Great Awakening in the American colonies. His name will always be remembered as the one who preached about the dangers of unconverted ministers. He both began and ended the New Side wing of the American Presbyterian church in the mid-seventeen hundreds. And he was born on this day, February 5, in County Armagh, Ireland, in the year 1703. He was to stay with his father and mother, William and Catherine Tennent, in Ireland for the first fourteen years, before the entire family emigrated to the American colonies, and specifically Pennsylvania, due to connections of a close family member of his mother. We read very little of his early life with the exception of the one great spiritual experience which brought him to Christ around the age