"Which comes first, the chicken or the egg?" is one of those questions signaling an unanswerable conundrum. This issue takes up the question of the formation of the Bible or "canon," meaning the official list and "rule" of Old and New Testament books. Readers may come to this topic from different starting points, but here […]
Editorial Introduction Modern Reformation as an organization does not take a view on the age of the earth other than to say that Genesis was not revealed in order to provide a scientific description of origins but as an historical prologue justifying God’s lordship over all creation. The editors believe that this article is an […]
It is increasingly common even in evangelical circles today to hear traditional Roman Catholic arguments for the Bible as "the church's book" and the church as "the mother of Scripture," as if the community created its own constitution. We are engaging sola Scriptura in a variety of ways in this issue, but this article focuses […]
This sovereignty of Scripture over the church may be defended not only from the New Testament but secondarily from the actual process by which the post-apostolic church arrived at the canon. Our twenty-seven books in the New Testament canon were first codified in an official list at the councils of Carthage (393) and Hippo (397). […]
Over the years, there have been numerous attempts to bring Roman Catholics and Protestants together under the mutual banner of Christianity. In 1970, a book was published titled Growing into Union: Proposals for Forming a United Church in England, which sought to unite Anglican evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics. In 1994, another attempt was made to bring […]
"Did you ever think that it would turn out this way?" Rev. Andrea Ferrari asked me excitedly after his ordination as minister in the United Reformed Churches of North America (URCNA). No, I definitely could have never foreseen this in 2005, when I started to work for Alfa e Omega, a small publishing house devoted […]
One of the most treasured classics of the ancient world is the saga of the Trojan War known as The lliad. Homer, the book’s author, lived about 800 years before Christ, while the Trojan War he reports on took place some 400 years prior. Therefore, The lliad is not an eyewitness account of the war, […]
by John Bar-ZebedeePapyrus Press, Late First Century21 chapters (softcover), priceless The general public has had to wait a long time for these intimate personal impressions of a great preacher, though the substance of them has for many years been familiarly known in Church circles. The friends of Mr. Bar-Zebedee have frequently urged the octogenarian divine […]
Why are we still talking about the Gnostic gospels? After all, the church has successfully weathered The Da Vinci Code storm, despite the tumultuous frenzy it caused. As New Testament professor Ben Witherington quipped, "When people calmed down, they realized it was closer to hysterical than historical fiction." (1) Furthermore, when the Gospel of Judas […]
When Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code first caused a stir, White Horse Inn co-host Michael Horton interviewed Paul L. Maier, who coauthored The Da Vinci Code: Fact or Fiction? with Hank Hanegraaff. As their discussion is relevant to this issue on canon formation, we are providing it here for our readers. Dr. Maier is […]
Having been reared in the home of a Baptist minister, I was exposed to the gospel on a daily basis. My father and our church were devout in their beliefs and faithful to expository preaching. The Word of God was central. As I have grown and matured in my faith, however, I have come to […]
If not familiar with law and gospel, one might identify the former with something like People's Court and the latter with a smiling evangelist saying, "God loves you." Fortunately, the nature of the relationship between law and gospel as found in Reformed theology is precisely the subject of John Colquhoun's (pronounced "ka-hoon") recently republished A […]
If you have been to the movies, visited your local bookstore, or scanned the tabloids at the supermarket within the past four years, then you have probably heard something about Stephanie Meyer's Twilight books. The film adaptations have grossed hundreds of millions of dollars at the box office, and the books remain on best-seller lists […]
