Reformed Christian Studies

By Rev. Benjamin Glaser - Posted at Mountains and Magnolias: Yesterday I wrote something for the local paper (we will see if it actually runs) that talked a short bit about the difference between seeking out counselors that confirm already held beliefs about ourselves and the world around us and instead that we should be wisely resting in the guidance provided previously by God Himself in the Holy Scriptures. This week has begun as a completely new chapter in the life of our family, especially for my sainted wife and kids, as we began the process of homeschooling our children. As part of that new chapter we have started having family worship in the morning as well as in the evening. Through prayer and study it was decided that the book that would receive the first focus in this early devotion was the book of Proverbs. Now Solomon, before he violated most of the principles he lays down in this work, and confesses that sin in the following material found in Ecclesiastes, writes Prov

By David T. Myers - Posted at This Day in Presbyterian History: Image from This Day in Presbyterian History It was clear that something had to be done. Princeton College was not being the source any longer for Presbyterian ministers, and for that matter, any ministers. The school had turned into a secular school for careers, like law, politics, and education. The reason for this was varied, Some saw the problem in the new president, Samuel Stanhope Smith. It wasn’t that he had no qualifications for the presidency. He himself was a graduate of the college. He had started what later became Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia. He had tutored under his father-in-law John Witherspoon as the Vice-President of Princeton, when the latter was unable physically to do it. So he had all the academic qualifications. Of more troublesome however were questions about his lack of Calvinistic distinctives. It seemed that they were in word only as there were suggestions of an emphasis

By Dr. R. Scott Clark - Posted at The Heidelblog: http://heidelblog.net/about/ God’s Word is very clear about sexual immorality. Leviticus 18 illustrates how God views sexual immorality . It prohibits adultery and moves immediately in the next verse to warn against not offering one’s children to Molech, to a prohibition against male homosexuality, which the text calls an “abomination.” It prohibits bestiality (vv. 18–23). All these things made Israel unclean. The punishment for these crimes was most grave. Those punishments have expired with the expiration of the death of Christ but God has not changed. Sexual immorality is still a sin. As we have already seen, our Lord Jesus forbids sexual immorality and the Apostle Paul forbids it in both 1 Corinthians 6 and 7. Scripture is clear that homosexual behavior is a sin. The argument is sometimes made that Christian opposition to homosexuality is grounded solely in the Mosaic (Old Covenant) civil laws and thus, if Christians oppose ho

By T.M. Moore - Posted at The Fellowship of Ailbe: You're in a war. Are you engaged? And Joshua went to Him and said to Him, “Are you for us or for our adversaries?” So He said, “No, but as Commander of the army of the LORD I have now come.” And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped... - Joshua 5.13, 14 So here we must fight and struggle with our vices, that we may be crowned elsewhere. For this is a time of war; no one should expect rest in warfare, for the reason that in warfare none sleeps, and none joins his rank at rest. - Columbanus, Sermon X, Irish, 7th century[1] In this life we are engaged in a great struggle, as Columbanus noted, a spiritual warfare, in which our enemy seeks to rob us of the righteousness, peace, and joy in the Spirit which are ours in the Kingdom of God. We are engaged in this warfare continuously. Well, we should be, at any rate. I wonder sometimes whether we struggle against our vices as earnestly as we should. It’s just

Culross Abbey Kirk These biographical highlights are from Wikipedia : In 1603 Elizabeth became the earliest known Scottish woman writer to see her work in print, when the Edinburgh publisher Robert Charteris issued the first edition of Ane Godlie Dreame, a Calvinist dream-vision poem. She was a personal friend of leading figures in the presbyterian opposition, whose frustration eventually erupted in 1637 in the Edinburgh Prayerbook Riots, leading to the National Covenant of February 1638, the Glasgow General Assembly which abolished the episcopate, and the outbreak of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms.[2] Melville's father was the courtier and diplomat Sir James Melville of Halhill (1535–1617), one of the many children of the Fife landowner Sir John Melville of Raith, an early convert to protestantism who was executed for treasonable communication with the English invaders in 1548. Elizabeth's marriage contract has not survived, but it is clear from the signatures to a legal doc

Ane godlie dreame, compylit in Scottish meter be M. M. gentelvvoman in Culros, at the requeist of her freindes , by Elizabeth Melville, Lady Culross. Title page. Published 1603 in Edinburgh by Robert Charteris. (Courtesy of National Library of Scotland.) Source: Wikipedia

By Elizabeth Melville (Lady Culross,) Published 1603 One day as mourned very sorely, With various things which my soul was grieving My peace fled and could not be relieved With heaviness my heart was very upset I loathed my life, I could not eat or drink I could not speak or look to any living soul But mused alone and diverse things did think. The wretched world did irritate my mind I thought upon this false and Iron age, And how our hearts were so to vice inclined That Satan seemed most fearfully to rage Nothing on earth my sorrow could ease I felt my sin most strongly to increase I grieved my Spirit that was wont to be, My soul was drowned in deep distress... Before the Lord I had thus complained My mind grew calm, my heart was at great rest... I long to live with my Redeemer near. Is this the cause, said he, rise up at once, And follow me and I shall be your guide... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ See also: ELIZABETH MELVILLE’S ANE GODLIE DREAME: A CRITICAL EDITION by KAREN RAE KECK, B.A

Posted at the Pulpit & Pen: The sixth duty wherein we must offer violence to ourselves, is the religious sanctifying of the Lord’s day. That there should be a day of holy rest dedicated to God appears from its institution. ‘Remember to keep holy the Sabbath.’ Our Christian Sabbath comes in the room of the Jewish Sabbath: it is called the Lord’s day, Rev. i.10. from Christ the author of it. Our Sabbath is altered by Christ’s own appointment. He arose this day out of the grave, and appeared on it often to His disciples, 1 Cor. xvi. 1: to intimate to them (saith Athanasius) that he transferred the Sabbath to the Lord’s day. And St. Austin saith that by Christ’s rising on the first day of the week, it was consecrated to be the Christian Sabbath, in remembrance of his resurrection. This day was anciently called dies lucis, the day of light, as Junius observes. The other days of the week would be dark, were it not for the shining of the sun of righteousness on this day. This day hat

From Grace Gems: (Archibald Brown) Nero fiddles while Rome burns (Image Source: National Geographic.com) "But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet to warn the people and the sword comes and takes the life of one of them--that man will be taken away because of his sin, but I will hold the watchman accountable for his blood! When I say to the wicked, 'O wicked man, you will surely die!' and you do not speak out to dissuade him from his ways--that wicked man will die for his sin, and I will hold you accountable for his blood!" Ezekiel 33:6-8 We behold this same evil affecting many of the pulpits of today's churches. Mere morality is taking the place of regeneration, and the atonement by blood is a slighted subject. Instead of beseeching men to be reconciled to God--we find ministers wasting their time in giving Sunday lectures about all kinds of subjects. Rome is burning--and Nero is playing his fiddle! Souls are perishi

By Dr. R. Scott Clark - The Heidelblog: In reaction to the latest phase of the sexual revolution, in response to the discovery by a 5–4 majority of the Supreme Court of the United States of “right” to same-sex marriage, in reaction to the rise of a militant “transgender” (transsexual) movement and the normalization of homosexuality generally, it has become accepted wisdom in some quarters that sexual sin is no different than any other sin. There is a sense in which that is true, of course, since James 2:10 says that to break one commandment is to break all of them. Nevertheless, there is more to be said. The Apostle Paul issued pointed warnings to the Corinthian congregation about the special dangers of sexual sin. Flee from sexual immorality (πορνείαν). Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not yo

Posted at This Day in Presbyterian History : At last, He Had Arrived You would have thought that he was a king making a royal entrance into his kingdom, so great was the rejoicing among God’s people to his arrival on the shores of the American colonies. And indeed, John Witherspoon was certainly the man whom God has chosen to lead the infant College of New Jersey in its next steps of Christian education. The College had some dark providences associated with its leadership. In the twenty years of its existence, the five leaders who served as its president, had served a few years and then died. In fact, it was this mortality rate which cause Mrs. Elizabeth Witherspoon, John’s wife in Scotland, to want nothing to do with the College. And so there had been four appeals to come over and help them, but all four of them failed to move the Scotchman, but more particularly the Scotch woman to wish to cross over the Atlantic. Finally, with the aid of Benjamin Rush, who at that time

By Rev. Benjamin P. Glaser - Posted at Mountains and Magnolias: Christian Image Source  Those salient words of the apostle Paul in the book of Romans have long been the calling card of faithful Christians in the face of the instruments of the evil one. It is with these words that many a believer has been brought to comfort and peace despite every effort of those who stand against the Bride of Christ. This was the same ethos that allowed Hezekiah to not fear, despite his own weaknesses, the fancy and fallacious words of Sennacherib. In the 2nd Book of Chronicles you have the chief spokesman for the king of Assyria promising death and destruction to any who would stand in the way of the will of the sovereign leader of his people. There resulted from this a great worry among the Israelites, and as king Hezekiah had a responsibility to defend his land from those who would like to see it laid waste and taken for their own use. Many a leader has faced similar situations, but the resp

Posted at This Day in Presbyterian History: We might not have even noticed William Floyd in history had he not been in place and time a signer of the Declaration of Independence. He was like countless others in the early history of our nation. From a family which had emigrated from the old country, this time from Wales, William Floyd was born in Brookhaven, Long Island in 1734. Despite the prominence of the parents, he received no academic education outside the home, and only the barest of education in the home. The eldest son with seven younger brothers and sisters, at age 20, he found himself as the owner of the estate of his parents when both of them died within two months of each other. Not interested in political matters up to the time of the American Revolution, he busied himself in military matters, even reaching that rank of Major General in the New York militia. But when the issues of separation from England were brought to the fore in the mid seventeen hundreds, he e

Posted at Tolle Lege: “The Psalter ought to be a precious and beloved book, if for no other reason than this: it promises Christ’s death and resurrection so clearly—and pictures His kingdom and the condition and nature of all Christendom—that it might well be called a little Bible. In it is comprehended most beautifully and briefly everything that is in the entire Bible. In fact, I have a notion that the Holy Spirit wanted to take the trouble Himself to compile a short Bible and book of examples of all Christendom or all saints, so that anyone who could not read the whole Bible would here have anyway almost an entire summary of it, comprised in one little book… Read more here...