RFPA Blog News

Translations in Focus - I Belong (Spanish)

Book Review - I Believe: Sermons on the Apostles' Creed

Especially ministers will profit from this prophet. They will profit from the setting forth, in I Believe, of Reformed basics, distinctives, and definitions—the teachings and their implications. They will profit from this master sermon-craftsman whose preaching was of biblical texts in light of themselves and their contexts and in light also of the one faith of the complete corpus of God’s revelation; here, as elsewhere in his writings and sermons, is exegetical-doctrine preaching and teaching at its best...

Gleanings in the Church Order (4): The Right to (Protest and) Appeal

Gleanings in the Church Order (3): Legality at the Assemblies

Perhaps one of the least understood matters in the Church Order is legality at the broader (or major—not higher) assemblies of classis and synod. Assuming that the matter is ecclesiastical in nature and manner, what may and may not be treated at classis or synod?

Book Review - Ten Commandments for Children

Gleanings in the Church Order (2): The Assemblies

"Federal Vision: Heresy at the Root": Interviews with Don Veitch

Gleanings in the Church Order (1): The Offices

For many the Church Order is a dull, unexciting document. At first glance, it seems to be a book of interest to none but elders, deacons, and pastors. But the church order is necessary because God requires that his church be orderly. Paul writes, “Let all things be done decently and in order” (1 Cor. 14:40). That really is the motto text behind the church order: we do not want anarchy, chaos, or disorder in the congregation; we want order and peace. To another congregation Paul writes that he “[rejoices] and [beholds] [their] order” (Col. 2:5). To another he writes to warn against “every brother that walketh disorderly” (2 Thess. 3:6, 11).

Order in the church is important, therefore.

Requirements of True Prayer (3): Humility and Confidence

Sincerity and humility, closely connected. Our coming to God in sincerity of heart is that we humble ourselves before God in prayer. This then is the second requirement of acceptable prayer according to the 117th Answer: that we rightly and thoroughly know our need and misery, so we may deeply humble ourselves in the presence of his divine majesty.

Requirements of True Prayer (2): Sincerity

We continue from part one of this series titled “In the School of Prayer: The Requirements of True Prayer.” Read part one here. When we pray, we are, first of all, called to pray to God sincerely. That's the first requirement of prayer, and we cannot go on to requirements 2 and 3 without first noticing this requirement: sincerity. Sincerity is underscored in Lord's Day 45. That was the teaching already of Question and Answer 116.

SB Staff Annual Meeting 2023

Worldlings on a Treadmill

The following review was written by Dr. H. David Schuringa on Ecclesiastes: A Reflective Exposition by Thomas Miersma (Jenison, MI: Reformed Free Publishing, 2023). This review was originally published in the May 13, 2023 issue of Christian Renewal magazine, a publication on Reformed worldview that can be read here.   To many, the book of Ecclesiastes may at best be a conundrum, at worse, a downer. We all know the happy ending, but an endless, dusty pathway of negativism to get there? Seems kind of like a...

Requirements of True Prayer (1): An Introduction

Book Review - Reformed Lord's Supper Form