The doctrine of sola scriptura was recovered for the church universal at the famous Leipzig Disputation in 1519. Against Johannes Eck, Luther returned every quotation from council or canon law with Scripture passages from memory. Biblical truth and the clarity of the gospel were then and are now the foundation of the church. Every modern […]
Quo warranto: "By what authority?" Posed to Jesus in Mark 11:28, this question became the driving impetus of the Protestant Reformation. By what authority should theology, spirituality, and ministry be judged? For nearly half a millennium, Protestants have answered this question by declaring sola scriptura. From Puritan pulpits in Britain to "Big Tent" revivals in […]
The Christian…finds in the Bible the very Word of God. Let it not be said that dependence upon a book is a dead or an artificial thing. The Reformation of the sixteenth century was founded upon the authority of the Bible, yet it set the world aflame. Dependence upon a word of man would be […]
In the theology of Martin Luther, the Holy Spirit (contending for his position among other spirits) cannot be separated from the external Word in the fixed and stable form we know as the Holy Scriptures. These Holy Scriptures belong to a broader matrix of instruments through which the Holy Spirit deals with people mediately rather […]
One Lord's Day as Robert Bruce (1554-1631) ascended the elevated pulpit at St. Giles Kirk in Edinburgh, King James VI was comfortably perched in his royal gallery overlooking the congregation from the rear. The relationship between Bruce and the Stewart king, though once amicable, became strained due to Bruce's unwillingness to negotiate the truth in […]
John Calvin complained of being assailed by "two sects"—"the Pope and the Anabaptists." Obviously quite different from each other, both nevertheless "boast extravagantly of the Spirit" and in so doing "bury the Word of God under their own falsehoods." (1) Both separate the Spirit from the Word by advocating the living voice of God with […]
Behind the familiar list of writings that make up the Christian Bible lie struggles over major issues of religious beliefs. In the earliest period of Christianity, particularly the second century CE, the shape and contents of the Christian Bible were neither inevitable nor uncontroversial matters, but instead reflected influential decisions on major struggles. The results […]
The authority of Scripture holds supreme importance in a Christian worldview, especially for Protestant evangelicals who believe that their faith and the way they live depend upon Scripture. Other branches of Christendom and skeptics, such as the convert to Roman Catholicism Peter Kreeft, sometimes raise objections to this crucial distinction. (1) They suggest that this […]
For our special issue on Sola Scriptura, Michael Horton, editor-in-chief of Modern Reformation and a co-host of the White Horse Inn, shared in the following exchange with Bryan Cross (M.Div., Covenant Theological Seminary), who was raised Pentecostal, became Presbyterian and then Anglican, and in 2006 was received into full communion with the Roman Catholic Church. […]
If you listen much to Christian radio (though I can’t say I recommend it), born-again Protestants apparently believe that change is a big part of being Christian. The Bible and the Holy Spirit will change the lives of believers, sometimes in radical proportions. In their public presentation, evangelicals are not shy about being “change-agents.” Change […]
"In this book, we are arguing that Christianity is ChristÂ?nothing more, nothing less" (23). "If the church does not reorient and become Christological at its core, any steps taken [in the future] will be backwards" (xiv). So say Leonard Sweet and Frank Viola in their co-authored volume Jesus Manifesto: Restoring the Supremacy and Sovereignty of […]
Church Planting is For Wimps begins with a counterintuitive title and builds a contrarian case for church planting from there. It directly assails the conventional wisdom about who the ideal church planter might be, how to go about the task of planting a church, and how success should be measured. The book is one of […]
No one saw it coming. In April 2005, former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan spoke glowingly of the burgeoning subprime mortgage industry. At his Senate confirmation hearings a few months later, current Chairman Ben Bernanke similarly disavowed any danger of a housing bubble. Policymakers, financiers, and captains of industry have spoken in near-unanimous chorus: […]
