Scholars place Irenaeus’ birth anywhere from 120 to 140 AD. In 177, eleven years after the martyrdom of Polycarp, Irenaeus went to Gaul and became the Bishop of Lugdunum in Gaul, which is today Lyons, France. One French church historian, Gregory of Tours, in his History of the French Church tells us that Irenaeus’ preaching... Continue Reading

 In 817, Louis the Pious appointed Claudius bishop of Turin, Italy. That’s when he came in contact with Italian idolatry, which seemed to know no bounds. There was, during his time, a lot of talk about religious images, especially in the Byzantine church, where some emperors banned them and empresses reinstated them. Claudius didn’t spend... Continue Reading

In early 2018, Squires told a soldier that he could not perform a marriage retreat for the soldier and the soldier’s same-sex partner, and Squires provided an alternative by rescheduling the event so that another chaplain could conduct the retreat. An Army investigating officer initially determined that Squires had discriminated against the soldier and recommended... Continue Reading

He also learned quickly when it came to preaching. There were five preaching stations around Larbert and so McCheyne preached three times on Sunday and several times during the week at Bible classes and meetings. Wheras Bonar preached for one and a half hours, McCheyne usually preached only ‘only’ 35 minutes because he thought the... Continue Reading

In some ways, Ratramnus is like Augustine: both Roman Catholics and Protestants claim him as their own. In reality, his book stands in church history more as a question mark than a period. It has contributed to raise important inquiries, and has proven that the history of Christian thought is not as black and white... Continue Reading

John Wycliffe has often been called “the Morning Star of the Reformation.” Jan Hus, another pre-Reformation reformer, felt obliged to express his supreme debt to Wycliffe. And though he lived long after Wycliffe’s death, Martin Luther, too, felt an obligation to recognize the pioneering reforms of John Wycliffe. Luther stood on the shoulders of Hus,... Continue Reading

He was a man of his time and place but, given that Warfield, who was just as Southern as Machen and born before the Civil War and therefore even more closely tied to the Old South, was able to overcome his culture and see that the sort of segregation held by the Old Princeton faculty... Continue Reading

In the preface to his book The Death of Death in the Death of Christ, Owen does what no good marketing agent would allow today. He begins like this: “READER, . . . If thou art, as many in this pretending age, a sign or title gazer, and comest into books as Cato into the theatre, to... Continue Reading

The preacher took as his text that morning Matthew 8:26: “Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?” It proved to be a message that Owen needed to hear and embrace. Through the words of a preacher whose identity is unknown, God spoke to Owen and removed once and for all his doubts and... Continue Reading

In the 6th century, the Byzantine Patriarch Sergius came up with several convenient solutions to the problem of Christ’s divided natures. First, he suggested that Jesus had only one energy, an idea opposed by Sophronius, an elderly and well-respected monk (later patriarch of Jerusalem) said that “one energy” sounded too much like “one nature.” Sergius then proposed... Continue Reading