#reformed — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #reformed, aggregated by home.social.
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M’Crie quotes an Inquisition victim who cried out to God, preferring cannibals to his baptized tormentors. M’Crie—a Reformed historian—neither flinches nor excuses it. The title says it all: the Reformation’s heirs were the primary targets, and they’re the ones who preserved the memory. If you’re Christian, don’t be a fiend. If you’re not, consider who kept this story alive, and why.
#reformed #reformedtheology #presbyterian #christian #inquisition
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Gossner—German Reformed and Lutheran minister—lists the components of divine service without apparent hierarchy. Suffer. Praise God. Preach the Gospel. Love the neighbor. Visit the widow and fatherless in their affliction. Keep unspotted from the world. It’s a complete list. One notes that contemporary spokesmen for historic conservative Christianity tend to cover some items more thoroughly than others, and develop considerable theological ingenuity around the remainder.
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Peter Stryker—Reformed Dutch pastor, surveying New York’s poorest—describes their situation as walls closing in daily, crushing them unless help arrives. Do you hear the shrieks? Don’t turn away because their poverty offends your refinement. And don’t say they authored their own misfortunes. That may be true of some, but not all, and in neither case is it a valid excuse for indifference. One notes that significant ministry energy currently flows in precisely the opposite direction.
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Thomas Watson, that wonderfully blunt Puritan, basically says: lovely speeches about compassion are useless if the poor are still hungry. You can drizzle honeyed words everywhere—but the wounded need bread, not poetry. Better to be a saint with a loaf than an angel with a microphone.
#puritan #christian #theologymatters #reformed #puritanscholastics
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Wolfgang Musculus, a German Reformed theologian, reminds us that while civil law may permit you to keep your money, the court of Christ and the conscience speak differently. Our Lord commands generosity without calculation. Yet modern Christians often rush to explain these commands away. When compassion rises naturally—even in children—we should tremble before silencing it. The question is not legality, but obedience: will you honor the conscience Christ Himself instructs?
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Matthew Henry reminds us that Christian meekness is not weakness but Christlike strength under control. The believer walks in love, forgives freely, serves humbly, and stoops to acts of mercy others avoid. In an age praising toughness, Scripture calls us to resemble Christ—strong enough to kneel, serve, and love sacrificially.
#christian #trinity #WordofGod #gospel #scripture #reformed #christ
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Andrew Martin Fairbairn notes that Calvin’s Geneva became Protestant Europe’s spiritual Airbnb: refugees arrived from everywhere, discovered a surprisingly orderly church, and then went home—occasionally risking execution—to recreate it. One wonders whether today’s Calvinist strongholds still feel like refuges, or merely meetings.
#sanctuary #refugees #immigration #calvinist #christian #reformed
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James Spencer Cannon, Dutch Reformed pastor, urged believers to “condescend to men of low estate”—not in pride, but by entering humble homes, speaking kindly, and welcoming the poor fully into church fellowship.
Are we ready for true communion, not distant charity? To have “their kids” sit next to yours at Sunday School?
#reformed #rooted #christian #christianworldview -
Jean Taffin, a Reformed peacemaker among quarrelling Protestants, suggested the safest investment strategy is alarmingly simple: give generously. Wealth vanishes anyway; charity deposits it with Christ. Odd how modern prudence often means guarding every coin from the poor. What might you entrust to Jesus instead?
#reformed #reformedtheology #theologymatters #faith #lazarus
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Charles Spurgeon, London Baptist preacher, urged real aid for a town hurt by its refusal to handle slave-grown cotton. Fine sermons and fiery words won’t feed the hungry or bind wounds—“words without deeds are chaff,” he cried. Citing Luke 4, Matthew 25, and the Good Samaritan, he pressed believers to act.
How will you give more than words?
#christian #reformed #baptist #antislavery -
Greville Ewing, founder of the Edinburgh Missionary Society, noted that the East India Company resisted missions because the gospel unsettled profitable injustice. Faithful preaching, he assumed, makes exploitation harder to maintain. If so, which dissatisfactions do we fear today—and which conversions do we resist? How might the gospel advance with integrity?
#reformed #reformedtheology #missions #christian #churchhistory #gospel -
Jean Daillé reminds the church that God does not ask for noisy prayers wrapped in empty ritual, but for lives that turn from evil and learn to do good. Justice for the oppressed, care for orphans, and defense of widows are the fragrance God welcomes with our prayers. Devotion is not replaced by action—but rightly seasoned by it. How will your prayers bear fruit in good works?
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David Brown, director of the Alliance of Reformed Churches in Scotland, reflects on the Good Samaritan. He argues the priest who passed by did not act from ignorance but in violation of known law—Scripture already required mercy even toward enemies and animals. The warning is sobering: righteousness that explains away neglect is no righteousness at all. How do we see “passing by” these days? How will we help those in distress?
#christian #reformed #usaid -
Timothy Dwight, grandson of Jonathan Edwards, imagines a revival of kindness so deep it would resemble Paradise restored: doors open to the poor and stranger, hearts ready to welcome, hands eager to relieve distress. Wealth would exist to bless; poverty only to invite generosity. The vision unsettles because it demands real openness. How might such kindness begin in us?
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Abraham Kuyper founded the #Reformed Churches in the Netherlands. Here he speaks of a universal connection & brotherhood. We all have the same family history, flesh and blood, and even the same skeleton. This motivates universal philanthropy, since nothing human is alien. We are to pray even for our enemies.
Today, do some claim highest connection to the Holy Spirit while arguing to limit concern for all of humanity?
Who do U ♥? #christian #holyspirit
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John Gibson Paton, Presbyterian minister in Vanuatu, laments that sellers of rum, opium, and guns follow missionaries. He hopes local Christians would be able to resist. Spreading of guns here, he calls this the Demons’ work.
Even the most responsible PCA pastor I know recently said in a sermon that liberals were out to “destroy commerce”. Then libruls say the job statement of missionaries is to promote slavery.
How can you fight the Demons’ work?
#christian #missions #presbyterian #reformed -
Jacques Saurin, French #Reformed pastor, says Christians must help the poor. But it’s a “crime” to do so with haughtiness, hardness, and constraint. Likewise a duty is to help neighbor in their happiness by keeping them on the path of salvation.
Wouldn’t these dual duties just fly in the face of every spat in today’s culture wars?
How can you keep up with the essential duties of religion?
#christian -
B.B. Warfield was a professor of #reformed theology, says the divine example is a life of self-sacrificing unselfishness. This is the most beautiful life that can be led.
I’ve seen many object to this idea, saying that to call Christ an Example must necessarily preclude Him from being a Savior.
How can you imitate our Master and Example?
#christian #giver #feastday #havefaith #godseesyou -
Richard Baxter was an English #Puritan leader,says it’s a crime to equate humans and beasts, to buy and set to the same tasks. He was aware of slavery in Barbados.
Is the crime today, instead, to admonish this practice?
How can you think of how those who provide you with goods and services may be treated as beasts?
#christian #reformed #empathy #inspirationoftheday -
Do 5 Point Calvanists believe that their all of their family members are "elect"? If not, how does that impact their view of God? If they are, then isn't that a little suspect?
This is an honest question, by the way. I really would like to get some feedback from someone who holds to these points.
I don't have an issue with some points of #Calvanism, but there are some glaring issues. 🔎
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Steven Ozmet's work on the Swiss Reformation helps to make a good deal of sense of why Calvin's Two Kingdoms theology has a weaker distinction than Luther's. (Calvin did learn the hard way the challenges of integrating church and governance, incidentally.)
#ChristianNationalism #TwoKingdoms #Polity #Reformed #Lutheran #Switzerland
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I saw a post recently asking if #Reformed pastors should start wearing clergy collars again. I did when doing campus ministry where most of the students (and faculty) were lapsed from backgrounds where the collar positively communicated “this is someone I can talk to about my struggles.” Recently, I put it on when a mostly #LCMS family requested it as a comfort for a funeral service.
I've avoided it in my more "native" #Presbyterian / #Reformed church settings, including my own. In the #PCA it carried the implication one was tied into far-right #FederalVision (#DougWilson and friends) and, ironically, when I would do pulpit supply in the #PCUSA — at least in St. Louis — it implied alignment with the farthest left segment.
In all contexts, I've hoped to apply 1 Cor. 9:19-22.
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Why should those who are #Reformed & #evangelical insist on the importance of #liturgical #worship ?
Because:
1) Worship is always presented as liturgical in the #Bible
2) Liturgical worship is the historic/universal form of the Church’s worship.
3) Liturgical worship is #sacramental - it presents the Gospel not only via the word, but also through the #sacraments ordained by God - and as such it is more faithfully biblical.
4) ALL the magisterial reformers worshipped liturgically.
5) Biblically shaped liturgy is missionally oriented - it shapes the worshipper for/towards #mission .
6) Liturgy is formative of “sticky” #faith : a) because it engages a person’s whole being, it tends to reinforce faith wholistically (not merely intellectually), b) because it is is sacramental the person TANGIBLY encounters God’s #grace , c) because historic liturgy is robustly biblical it soaks the person in Scripture, and d) because it is patterned/repetitive it becomes engrained. -
The longer I live within, study, and watch the ecclesial scene, the more I have become convinced over the years that any real hope for a effective and fruitful #ecumenism (that really will issue forth reunification of Churches) is going to be found in the episcopal system (i.e. #catholic #orthodox #anglican traditions). It has been hard coming to that conclusion as a #Reformed #christian but it had become increasingly obvious to me. The question is, are Christians who are not part of a #denomination with an episcopate willing to make that shift for the sake of following our Lord’s prayer: “that they all may be one” (John 17:21)? That is a question I have been asking myself.
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I've been spending a few days in Newark, New Jersey with the good folks at the World Communion of Reformed Churches! #ecumenism #communion #Reformed #theology #church
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In #reformed and #evangelical circles we really lack an important element in #faith #formation - the ability to look to those #Christians who have gone before us and offer a particularly faithful exhibition of conformity to #Christ.
I’ve been attempting to fix this by introducing the congregation I serve to some of our great brethren from the past.
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William Ames, Puritan minister, discusses aid. 1) Seek to give more to the good. 2) Be not over critical in seeking out faults of the poor. Charity does not easily think of evil. (Love keeps no record of wrongs, even to aid recipients!).
Isn’t much of modern discourse, especially the debate over foreign aid, all about being curiously inquisitive to the hidden fault of the poor?
How can you glorify God with alms?
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New! My talk for the #Reformed Institute of Metropolitan Washington on Nov. 20: "Reformed Contributions to the #Ecological Movement"--great discussion afterward!
#envhist #history #environmentalism #religion #calvinismhttps://reformedinstitute.org/program/reformed-contributions-to-the-ecological-movement/