The Calvinist International
The Collect for the First Sunday after Christmas from the Order of Worship for the Reformed Church in the United States is below. Whereas The Book of Common Prayer repeats the Collect from Christmas Day, the Order gives a different prayer that takes its beginning from John 3.16. The prayer then goes on to draw on Ephesians 2.8 (“the […]
December 28 marks the commemoration of Herod’s slaughter of the Holy Innocents. Particularly in light of circumstances here and around the world, it would perhaps be prudent for all Christian churches to observe the Festival of the Holy Innocents as a matter of public testimony. (One of the best and most piercing imaginative meditations on […]
The second day after Christmas has traditionally provided an occasion for Western Christians for reflecting on the Apostle John. Below is the Collect included for that purpose in the Order of Worship for the Reformed Church in the United States. The editors comment that December 27 is used for this purpose “because [John] was the bosom […]
It is not, of course, problematic from a Protestant point of view to remember with gratitude the example of holy men and martyrs. Indeed, it is meet and right so to do. After all, Hebrews 11 does the same. To that end, here is the Collect for December 26, the day that in the West […]
Here are the prayers for Christmas Day from the Order of Worship for the Reformed Church in the United States. The Collect is the same as that found in The Book of Common Prayer, which connects Christ’s being born of the Virgin to our being born again or regenerated such that we, too, may become children of God. […]
Below is the Collect for the Fourth Sunday in Advent from the Order of Worship for the Reformed Church in the United States. Once again it differs from that found in The Book of Common Prayer: O Lord, raise up (we pray thee) thy power, and come among us, and with great might succor us; that whereas, through our […]
At long last, the last section of the “Guide to Private Devotion” in A Liturgy, or, Order of Christian Worship. The texts and prayers focus on (a) praising God in the watches of the night and (b) preparing for death. The final prayer contains an allusion to the Te Deum. It would be nice to […]
I must apologize for the month-long delay in completing this series on the Federal Vision. Seasonal travels and other obligations interfered. Nevertheless, I will begin to lay out a summary description of the theological issues involved in the Federal Vision and offer some critical observations. Before attempting this, a few caveats have to be given. […]
Last week I posted a Christmas poem by Geerhardus Vos. That, however, was not the only such poem he wrote. The second poem in an earlier volume of verse, called Charis (1931), bears the same title as the poem in the previous post: “Nativity.” Like the later poem, this earlier one focuses a good amount […]
Herewith another Christmas poem by another American Presbyterian: this time a man named Louis F. Benson (1855-1930), whose memory has mostly faded away. Benson was a Philadelphian who went to Penn, then was a lawyer, then a Presbyterian minister in Germantown, PA, and then a writer, as well as an editor at the Presbyterian Board […]