June 12, 2024 by John Fonville
Carl Trueman clarifies a common misconception that is popular among Evangelicals concerning the Protestant Reformation doctrine of sola scriptura....
July 26, 2023 by John Fonville
J.C. Ryle answers the common arguments in favor of “Baptismal Regeneration,” which are based on the Baptismal Service of the Prayer-book. ...
July 14, 2023 by John Fonville
J.V. Fesko on the sacraments as visible words- a visible proclamation of the gospel....
July 13, 2023 by John Fonville
J.V. Fesko on the Word of God as the chief means of grace. ...
July 7, 2023 by John Fonville
Martin Davie explains from the homily, ‘Of Prayer’ in the Second Book of Homilies, how the English Reformers taught that the only true purgatory is the death of Christ and no other purgation is either necessary or possible....
May 15, 2023 by John Fonville
Why Use Written Prayers?- Why does your church use prewritten prayers in your service? Isn't this a dry, rote, unthinking, way for the church to pray and worship? Don't pre-written prayers stifle the Spirit and hinder freedom and promote mechanical, vain repetition? Aren't spontaneous prayers more genuine and heartfelt than prewritten prayers? ...
May 5, 2023 by John Fonville
This writing of Martin Luther is from the introduction to his “Postils” (a group of model sermons which he wrote while at the Wartburg Castle). This brief foreword is full of comfort and good news. In it, Luther sets forth insightful instruction on how to read the Gospels (and the entirety of Scripture- the OT and NT)....
August 25, 2022 by John Fonville
My argument is this: By the year 1700, Protestant Christianity had begun developing significantly new practices and understandings of the Christian faith that focused upon Christian renewal, conversion, new birth and the coming millennial kingdom. These new practices and understandings were a dramatic departure not only from Roman Catholic Christianity, but also from the original Reformation convictions of Martin Luther and John Calvin some one hundred and fifty years earlier. Evangelical Christianity, of the free church variety especially, is the contemporary expression of this third form of Christianity. Probably most Evangelicals are unaware that their Christian experience and piety are far removed from Reformation Protestant beginnings. Evangelicals would do well to recover their lost heritage....
August 20, 2022 by John Fonville
Martin Luther's primary concern when constructing the German mass and order of the liturgy in 1526 was that the gospel be proclaimed for the people in their context....
July 28, 2022 by John Fonville
Martin Luther on the worthy reception of the Lord's Supper....
July 27, 2022 by John Fonville | Category: Infant Baptism | Tags: covenant theology, means of grace, reformed theology, infant baptism, paedobaptism, sacraments, Visible Church, Discipleship
Infant baptism sets Christian discipleship from birth within a covenant context, which means means to understand discipleship as something connected to the ordinary means of God’s grace and the routine work of the church....
Keep ReadingJuly 26, 2022 by John Fonville | Category: Idolatry | Tags: Idolatry, Anglican Formularies, Reformation Anglicanism, The Book of Homilies, images, Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion (1571), Article 22 Of Purgatory
The homily, 'Against Peril of Idolatry,' in the Second Book of Homilies, makes four key points against the use of images, which, it says, are idols under another name. ...
Keep ReadingMay 23, 2022 by John Fonville | Category: Sacraments | Tags: baptism, sacraments, Lord's Supper, Paedocommunion, sacrament of imitation, sacrament of covenant ratification
J.V. Fesko on The Illegitimacy of Paedocommunion. Just because infants are baptized and are members of the church does not mean that they are automatically entitled to participate in the Lord’s Supper....
Keep ReadingMay 4, 2022 by John Fonville | Category: Adoption | Tags: grace, 10 commandments, Mercy, Adoption, sonship, Son, slave, Thomas Watson
Thomas Watson, "Adoption is greater mercy than Adam had in paradise."...
Keep ReadingApril 11, 2022 by John Fonville | Category: 1662 BCP | Tags: Anglican Formularies, Palm Sunday, 1662 BCP, The Sunday Next Before Easter, Reformation Anglicanism
Why does the 1662 BCP have "The Sunday Next Before Easter" rather than "Palm Sunday?"...
Keep ReadingApril 5, 2022 by John Fonville | Category: Christian Living | Tags: grace, gospel, obedience, covenant of grace, covenant of works, legalism, antinomianism, Gratitude, guilt, christian life, Normative, pedagogical, law of God, three uses of the law, guide, victory, defeat, sailing
Sailing and the Christian life....
Keep ReadingApril 5, 2022 by John Fonville | Category: Gospel-driven | Tags: third use of the law, Normative, guide, grace-driven obedience, evangelical obedience, justification, sanctification, christian life, holiness, obedience, promise, guilt offering, thank offering,
How do believers respond to the moral law?...
Keep ReadingApril 5, 2022 by John Fonville | Category: Law of God | Tags: sanctification, law and gospel, good works, obedience, justification, ten commandments, moral law, law of God, fruit of the Spirit, three uses of the law
The basic function of the law never changes. What is this function? Read on to find out....
Keep ReadingApril 4, 2022 by John Fonville | Category: Three Uses of the Law | Tags: grace, righteousness, john calvin, Holy Spirit, Mercy, conviction, normative use, pedagogical use, three uses of the law, civil use, mirror, restrain, guide
John Calvin discusses the three uses of the moral law....
Keep ReadingMarch 22, 2022 by John Fonville | Category: Lordship Salvation | Tags: sanctification, repentance, faith, obedience, holiness, assurance, moralism, michael horton, righteousness, justification, lordship salvation, sola fide, solus christus, sola gratia, soli deo gloria, Love, Regeneration, Knowledge, Trust, King, prophet, priest, assent, affections, Protestant Reformation, duplex beneficium
Ten propositions in response to Lordship Salvation from the book, Christ the Lord: The Reformation and Lordship Salvation....
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