[I’m glad to have received this letter from Wayne Sparkman of the PCA Historical Center who has been working on the newly acquired papers of Floyd Hamilton. This is the first new discovery of a Gordon Clark letter in a while. And it is an important letter as it was written during the Clark – …
October 13, 2019 at First Presbyterian Church at Unionville, NY (BPC) Sermon Text: [Jhn 6:60-71 ESV] 60 When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” 61 But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, “Do you take …
Sermon on John 6:60-71 – “The Offense of the Gospel” Read More »
Session Book of the Unionville Presby Church Middletown Sept 22nd 1831 At a meeting of the Presbytery of Hudson held at Westown September 14. 1831 A minute was made of which the following is a true extract Viz. A petition signed by sixty nine members of the Church in Westown requesting to be set off …
Reformed Dogmatics, Abridged in One Volume, by Herman Bavinck, ed., John Bolt, Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011, 847 pp. Well, that took a while to read. I generally liked Bavinck’s Reformed Dogmatics but can’t really give it a special place in my heart. It is at the same level of the systematic theologies of say Charles …
October 6, 2019 at First Presbyterian Church at Unionville, NY (BPC) Sermon Text: [Jhn 6:30-59 ESV] 30 So they said to him, “Then what sign do you do, that we may see and believe you? What work do you perform? 31 Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave …
September 29, 2019 at First Presbyterian Church of Unionville, NY (BPC) Sermon Text: [Jhn 6:22-29 ESV] 22 On the next day the crowd that remained on the other side of the sea saw that there had been only one boat there, and that Jesus had not entered the boat with his disciples, but that his …
September 15, 2019 at First Presbyterian Church of Unionville, NY (BPC) Sermon Text: [Jhn 6:16-21 ESV] 16 When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea, 17 got into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. 18 The sea became …
Sermon on John 6:16-21 – “It is I; do not be afraid” Read More »
September 15, 2019 at First Presbyterian Church of Unionville, NY (BPC) Sermon Text: [Jhn 6:1-15 ESV] 1 After this Jesus went away to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias. 2 And a large crowd was following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing on …
Sermon on John 6:1-15 – “Jesus Feeds the Five Thousand” Read More »
September 8, 2019 at First Presbyterian Church of Unionville, NY (BPC) Sermon Text: [Jhn 5:30-47 ESV] 30 “I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me. 31 If I alone bear witness …
Sermon on John 5:30-47 — “Multiple Witnesses to the Testimony of Jesus” Read More »
Text for the Sermon: Luke 13:1-5 [Luk 13:1-5 ESV] 1 There were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. 2 And he answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in …
Sermon on Luke 13:1-5 – “Repentance and the Gospel” Read More »
September 1, 2019 at First Presbyterian Church of Unionville, NY (BPC) Sermon Text: [Jhn 5:19-29 ESV] 19 So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise. …
First there was J. Gresham Machen’s Christianity and Liberalism. Then there was Cornelius Van Til’s Christianity and Barthianism. And now there is Keith Mathison’s “Christianity and Van Tillianism.” Machen’s contention was that Liberalism is not Christianity but an entirely different religion. Van Til was making the same point regarding Barthianism when he likewise contrasted it …
Not So Fast! – Comments on Keith Mathison’s “Christianity and Van Tillianism” Read More »
August 25, 2019 at First Presbyterian Church of Unionville, NY (BPC) Sermon Text: [Jhn 5:1-18 ESV] 1 After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 2 Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades. 3 In …
Sermon on John 5:1-18 – “Jesus Rules Over the Sabbath” Read More »
August 18, 2019 at First Presbyterian Church of Unionville, NY (BPC) Sermon Text: [Jhn 4:45-54 ESV] 45 So when he came to Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him, having seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the feast. For they too had gone to the feast. 46 So he came again to Cana in …
Sermon on John 4:45-54 — “Faith in Jesus Himself” Read More »
My favorite source of historical information is letter collections. I’ve recently found these letters from William Jennings Bryan to Bible Presbyterian minister Roy T. Brumbaugh in the collection of the latter’s papers owned by Brumbaugh’s grandson, David Sinding. Whenever I find letters like these I wonder if there is some scholar, like a William Jennings …
Letters of William Jennings Bryan to Bible Presbyterian minister Roy T. Brumbaugh Read More »
In a previous post (Francis Schaeffer, Pseudo-Calvinist) I criticized Francis Schaeffer’s apparent lack of conformity with Reformed soteriology later in his life. But I also referenced there a 1948 publication of his indicating that he did hold to a Calvinist view early in his career. Now I’ve found something of his from earlier (1942) and …
I’m glad to announce that First Presbyterian Church at Unionville, NY has left the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) and joined the Bible Presbyterian Church (BPC). The Great Lakes Presbytery of the BPC has examined me and approved my transfer from the denomination in which I am ordained, the Reformed Presbyterian Church – Hanover Presbytery. …
Herman Bavinck, Pastor, Churchman, Statesman, and Theologian, by Ron Gleason, Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2010, 511 pp. This is one of the more interesting and informative biographies out of the couple dozen or so that I’ve read on various church figures. Herman Bavinck had a central place in the Dutch Reformed churches in the late 19th …
July 28, 2019 at First Presbyterian Church of Unionville Sermon Text: [Jhn 4:27-44 ESV] 27 Just then his disciples came back. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you seek?” or, “Why are you talking with her?” 28 So the woman left her water jar and went …
Sermon on John 4:27-44 – “Labor in the Field of the Lord” Read More »
July 21, 2019 at First Presbyterian Church of Unionville Sermon Text: [Jhn 4:1-26 ESV] 1 Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John 2 (although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples), 3 he left Judea and departed again for Galilee. 4 …
Sermon on John 4:1-26 – “Worship in Spirit and Truth” Read More »
D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, The First Forty Years, 1899-1939, by Iain H. Murray, The Banner of Truth Trust, 1982, 394 pp. This is the first time I’ve ever read a “biogr.” A what? A half biography, of course. I am glad to find out that Iain Murray later wrote the second “aphy” half as David Martyn …
Review of D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, The First Forty Years by Iain Murray Read More »
The Origin of Paul’s Religion, by J. Gresham Machen, 1925, Eerdmans 1947, 329 pp. In The Origin of Paul’s Religion J. Gresham Machen argues against various modernistic theories of the sources of the Apostle Paul’s Christianity. Machen’s contention is that the Biblical account itself provides the best explanation of the resulting history. He concludes, “Everywhere …
Review of The Origin of Paul’s Religion by J. Gresham Machen Read More »
While driving through western Pennsylvania this morning I stopped in the town of Prospect where there is buried Rev. James Armstrong Clark, the paternal grandfather of Gordon H. Clark. The gravesite is at the cemetery of the Presbyterian Church of Prospect where an obelisk marks the location. A number of other family members are apparently …
July 7, 2019 at First Presbyterian Church of Unionville Sermon Text: [Jhn 3:22-36 ESV] 22 After this Jesus and his disciples went into the Judean countryside, and he remained there with them and was baptizing. 23 John also was baptizing at Aenon near Salim, because water was plentiful there, and people were coming and being …
June 30, 2019 at First Presbyterian Church of Unionville Scripture reading: John 3:1-21 [Jhn 3:1-21 ESV]1 Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. 2 This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for …
