Free Republic

What caused the Reformation?Many people might answer that question by pointing to Martin Luther and his 95 Theses.But if you were to ask Luther himself, he would not point to himself or his own writings. Instead, he would give all the credit to God and His Word.Near the end of his life, Luther declared: “All I have done is put forth, preach and write the Word of God, and apart from this I have done nothing. . . . It is the Word that has done great things. . . . I have done nothing; the Word has done and...

The Lord declares in Isaiah 43:25: I, I am He who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins. Psalm 103:2-3 adds: Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases… Many will use these verses against the idea of confession to a priest. God forgiving sins, they will claim, precludes the possibility of there being a priest who forgives sins. Further, Hebrews 3:1 and 7:22-27 tell us Jesus is, “the… high priest of our confession” and that there are...

After the apostles died, was the gospel hopelessly lost until the Reformation?That certainly seems to be a common assumption in some Protestant circles today. Thankfully, it is a false assumption.I’m not entirely sure where that misconception started. But one thing I do know: it did not come from the Protestant Reformers.The Reformers themselves (including Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, and others) were convinced that their position was not only biblical, but also historical. In other words, they contended that both the apostles and the church fathers would have agreed with them on the heart of the gospel.For example, the second-generation Lutheran reformer, Martin Chemnitz (1522-1586), wrote a...

EDITOR'S NOTE: Sanctity of Human Life Sunday (Jan. 18) commemorates 42 years of legal abortion in the United States. NASHVILLE (BP) -- The claim of some pro-choice groups that Scripture does not address abortion would have surprised both Jews and Christians living in the first century. That's because they were virtually unanimous that the Bible implicitly -- though clearly -- prohibited the killing of unborn children. Abortion advocates today tend either to deny this fact or remain gladly ignorant of it. For example, Planned Parenthood, America's largest abortion provider, issued a "pastoral letter to patients" last spring stating, "Many people...

Where in the New Testament are "priests" mentioned? Full QuestionThe New Testament mentions three categories of Church leaders: bishops, presbyters, and deacons. So how can the Catholic Church justify its office of "priest"? The New Testament writers seem to understand "bishop" and "presbyter" to be synonymous terms for the same office (Acts 20:17-38). AnswerThe English word "priest" is derived from the Greek word presbuteros, which is commonly rendered into Bible English as "elder" or "presbyter." The ministry of Catholic priests is that of the presbyters mentioned in the New Testament (Acts 15:6, 23). The Bible says little about the duties...

Much more than a single article could be written detailing all the ways in which American evangelical Protestantism looks very different from the early church. Certainly not all of the developments in our external circumstances or internal practices have been for the worse. But one key way in which American evangelicals have not been closely hewing to the faithful biblical example of our spiritual forefathers and foremothers is in the basic attitude and response we often have towards what to do about blatant unfaithfulness within the church itself. People often romantically long for the purity of "the New Testament church."...

Two Canons: Scripture & Tradition by Jimmy AkinMany Protestants would say, “Apostolic traditions would be binding on us if we could identify which traditions are apostolic and which are not. Obiously we want to obey and accept anything the apostles commanded and taught in the name of God.”That is good. Protestants who say this recognize the authority of the apostles’ teaching; they simply need to see the mechanism by which we can recognize the apostles’ teachings.1. THE CANON PRINCIPLEHow do we do that? The answer is that we recognize apostolic tradition the same way we recognized apostolic scripture. Today...

I recently had a few young men looking to join the Catholic Church. Their math teacher told them that if they join the Catholic Church, they'll go to Hell.

Does “Gospel” Simply Mean “Good News”? Or Have We Unintentionally Defined Ourselves into a Corner?By: Msgr. Charles PopeThere are times in the Church when we want to define something rather easily and simply so as to make it memorable and easy to grasp. But in so doing, we run the risk of doing harm to its deeper, richer, and more accurate meaning.I wonder if we have not done this with the word “gospel.” Most of us have been trained to define the word “gospel” as “good news.” Clearly there is good news in the Gospels and, by extension, the whole of...

On All Souls Day, the Catholic Church offers prayers and liturgies for the repose of the dead. As Catholics, we are called by the Church to focus our spiritual energies to assist these poor souls, who, though saved, are still in need of purification. Our prayers and sacrifices assist them in this process of purification as a means used by God to communicate purifying grace to them. After all, He is the vine, we are the branches so that He produces his fruits of grace through us. The practice of praying for the dead actually predates Christianity. In 2 Maccabees...

Why Did God Kill Onan? Luther, Calvin, Wesley, C.S. Lewis, & Others on Contraception Genesis 38:9-10: “But Onan knew that the offspring would not be his; so when he went in to his brother’s wife he spilled the semen on the ground, lest he should give offspring to his brother. 10 And what he did was displeasing in the sight of the Lord, and he slew him also.” It is an historical fact that no Christian communion sanctioned contraception until the Anglican Lambeth Conference in 1930. Protestant historian Roland Bainton states casually that the Church “very early forbade contraception”...

The Tyndale New Testament of 1525 was the first English translation based on the Greek and the first English Bible to be printed. (The Wycliffe Bible was based on Latin and published only in hand-written manuscripts.) The King James Bible is an edition of Tyndale’s masterly translation. William Tyndale is therefore the most important one name in the history of the English Bible and one of most important names in history of the English people. TYNDALE’S TIMES Tyndale was born to a time of great change and turmoil. It was a time of international travel and discovery. When he was...

There are several things to realize about the Old Testament harvests and feasts. The three harvests (Exodus 23:14-17) parallel the Crucifixion/Resurrection, Pentecost/The Church, and Christ's Return (1 Corinthians 15:23-24). The seven feasts of these harvests (Leviticus 23) correspond to the Church's liturgical seasons: Advent, Christmas, Ordinary, Lent, Triduum, Easter, Ordinary. The harvest seasons can be classified as such: the first (Spring/Summer) gave grain, the second (Summer) gave grapes, and the third (Summer/Fall) gave olives, figs, and more. The first, of grains, was smaller in weight -- because the other harvests were water-dense -- but the biggest source of food, as...

h/t Ink Visitor

Remember a few years back when some company was found to have put Biblical quotes on gunstocks it sold to the U.S. military — even just a few months ago the Islamic supremacist apologist Mubin Shaikh used that in a debate with me on Michael Medved’s radio show to claim that the misadventure in Iraq was a “Crusade.” Will Leftists and Islamic supremacists start charging that Kerry’s campaign against “global warming” is likewise a Crusade?

The Trouble With Calvin – Pt. 3 In my last two blog posts, we examined the first two of the “five points” of Calvinism popularly known by the acronym, TULIP, which represents 1. Total Depravity 2. Unconditional Election 3. Limited Atonement 4. Irresistible Grace 5. Perseverance of the Saints (“once saved, always saved”). In this post, we will tackle the third point:Limited AtonementNo Christian that I know of would deny that some doctrines are more or less clear than others in Scripture. When it comes to the atonement of Christ, the Scriptures are most clear: Jesus Christ died on the...

by Matt SlickOne of the objections raised by critics of biblical inspiration is that the Bible is not the word of God, but that it contains the word of God.  Is this accurate?  No.  First of all, this doesn't fit what the Bible says about itself.  The collection of 66 books that the Christian Church recognized as being inspired speaks as the very words of God in many places. "Thus says the Lord" occurs over 400 times in the Old Testament. "God said" occurs 42 times in the Old Testament and four times in the New Testament. "God spoke"...

The Trouble With Calvin – Pt. 2 In my last post, I began a series of critiques of John Calvin’s famous “five points,” most often referred to using the acronym, TULIP, which represents Total Depravity, Unconditional Election, Limited Atonement, Irresistibility of Grace, and The Perseverance of the Saints (“once saved, always saved”). In this installment, we’ll deal with Unconditional Election.Calvin’s idea of Unconditional Election simply means that God “elected” certain men for salvation and others for damnation from all eternity, rooted in texts of Scripture, as we will see below, like Romans 9:10-12:And not only so, but also when Rebecca had conceived...

W.I.T. scientists, in conjunction with the Human Genome Project and Bob Jones University, have made what may be the most astounding discovery of this, or any generation. While working to understand and map the function of sequences of DNA in the human genome known as “Junk DNA” (for their lack of known function), scientists at W.I.T. noted that while the DNA sequences they were seeing bore little resemblance to the coding for biological function, they bore a striking similarity to the patterns of human language. Gene Bmp3 has a Retrotransposon sequence which translates to the well-known 1 Cor 6:19 “Do...

Tattoos are making a comeback in present day culture. From teenagers to housewives, they are appearing everywhere, even among Christians. So then, is it okay for Christians to get tattoos? To answer this, we need to see what the Bible says about it, if anything.First of all, making marks on the skin is mentioned in several verses. The first is in Leviticus and the rest are in the book of Revelation which deal with the Mark of the Beast. Lev. 19:28, "‘You shall not make any cuts in your body for the dead, nor make any tattoo marks on...