The Calvinist International
In today’s post, Melanchthon cites one more patristic source (Origen) as an example of how the church’s authority is rightly deployed. He then proceeds to sketch his understanding of the relation of the church to the Word and to give his definitions of what the church (1) is not, and (2) is. The church at […]
One of the most common procedural grounds on which Protestant churches can be critiqued is their lack of Apostolic Succession. It is very common for anti-Protestant apologists to argue that Protestants lack authentic ministerial orders because they cannot lay claim to this succession, and hence their churches can be dismissed without needing to engage with […]
John 6.22ff. is a text that has long been used in various ways and to various ends in debates about the Eucharist. Christ himself gives a clue to its proper interpretation in v. 63: “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is of no avail. The words that I have spoken to you […]
The following passage is so over-quoted that I hesitate to quote it again (I discuss the general idea in an essay in this book), but I’m going to do it anyway to make just one tiny little point. That point is this: though Aristotle is enjoying something of a renaissance among “conservative” Christian theologians these […]
At the end of the Book of Ruth, Boaz redeems the Moabitess Ruth, and the people and elders of the city say to Boaz: “We are witnesses. May the Lord make the woman, who is coming into your house, like Rachel and Leah, who together built up the house of Israel. May you act worthily […]
Let’s return again to the Westminster Confession of Faith on Scripture. In 1.9, the Divines say: IX. The infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture is the Scripture itself: and therefore, when there is a question about the true and full sense of any Scripture (which is not manifold, but one), it must be searched and […]
I’d like to return to a point that I made in the previous post to emphasize it again, because, at the end of the day, it is extremely important. So, once more: the Westminster Divines say this: VII. All things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all: yet those things […]
In the first chapter of their confession of faith, on Holy Scripture, the Westminster Divines say (among other things): VI. The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for His own glory, man’s salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from […]
The scene: Twitter, Reformation Day 2017. The charge: “The more I prayed, studied history &theology, read the Bible & ChurchFathers, the more I felt God calling me to be Protestant” said no one — Ryan T. Anderson (@RyanTAnd) November 1, 2017 To date, this has been retweeted 95 times (the number seems oddly fitting) and […]
Protestants in the sixteenth century were fond of quoting a number of passages from patristic sources in which the “exclusive particle” (i.e., “alone”) was used in connection with justification. Philip Melanchthon, for example, does this in his Responsiones ad impios articulos Bavaricae inquisitionis (“Answers to the Impious Articles of the Bavarian Inquisition”) in Article 23, “Whether […]