Biblical · Reformed · Evangelical · Thought-Provoking
Luther asked how a sinner is made right with God. Calvin asked an even prior question: how is God rightly worshiped? Taylor argues that the Reformation's deepest legacy is the Reformed insistence that justification exists for the sake of worship, and worship is the goal toward which salvation tends.
The proclaimed Word is the load-bearing wall of Reformed worship. Gwinn watches Presbyterians shave minutes off the sermon for committee updates and musical responses, and asks what we are giving away when we treat preaching as a part of worship rather than as worship itself.
Does the preaching model of Luther, Zwingli, Oecolampadius, Bullinger, and Calvin still speak to a generation shaped by smart phones, Hulu, and Instagram? Gibbons argues that the Reformers' way of preaching is not a museum piece but a working practice, and shows how it travels into the digital age.
Hughes Oliphant Old died in May 2016 at age eighty-three, leaving behind decades of scholarship that shaped Reformed worship across denominational lines. Taylor's tribute traces what Old taught us about how worship has actually been done, and what we lose if his books gather dust.
Should we baptize infants or only believers? Sprinkle, pour, or immerse? Mills argues with James Torrance that the first question to ask isn't who or how, but what baptism actually does. The Reformed answer reorients the practical debates almost completely.
Christians are made to be different. Achtemeier follows that New Testament refrain into the abortion debate, arguing that the church's witness on the unborn is finally a sacramental one: people who live by the powers of the triune Lord cannot value human life on the world's terms.
1 Corinthians 11 has supplied 'regimental colors' for centuries of arguments about women in worship. Bailey reads the passage in its larger literary context (1 Cor 11-14 as a single essay) and offers a careful answer to what Paul actually meant when he addressed women's prayer and prophecy.
Forty years into preaching, Johnson offers ten convictions about what it actually takes to do the work well. Romans 10 frames the piece: how shall they call on him in whom they have not believed, and how shall they believe in him whom they have not heard?
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