Over the next number of blogs I want to offer quotations from various books which I hope will challenge and encourage you. The topics are of quite a wide range, so I hope the shotgun approach works. Today we read from Calvin’s wonderful little work, The Necessity of Reforming the Church. In it, Calvin defends the need for the Reformation to Charles V, the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. He has many reasons for his defense and one of them is the need to reform worship; to br

New Year's resolutions are dumb. Spiritual resolutions are not. Let me offer an example from history; the well known Resolutions of Jonathan Edwards. Jonathan Edwards was an 18th century pastor and theologian -- arguably the best America has ever produced. When he was a young man, 19 years old, he began to write “Resolutions,” begun in 1722. These he expanded throughout his lifetime as a means of intentional spiritual formation. They were carefully thought out and designed to

NOTE:  I have invited the contributions of Stu Reimer to write in this space on the issues of marriage and family. If you follow CRC at all you will know Stu to be my frequent substitute in the pulpit and I am looking forward to his work as my substitute from time to time in this space. Expect his blogs to appear every 6 weeks or so. Stu is no expert on the things on which I have asked him to write (Just ask his wife and children), but he is a committed reformed Christian and

We are back to start another run of blogs... lasting until April when I will take another month long break. We start with a review of an excellent book on the Trinity. Fred Sanders, in an excellent book on the Trinity in its own rite, states that the doctrine of the Trinity is the comprehensive truth of the Christian message. It is the all-encompassing truth that lies in the background of the gospel and every theological belief to which the Christian faith holds. Yet the vast