“It is impossible to understand predestination without realizing that God’s decrees flow from the inner life of the triune God” (Joel R. Beeke & Mark Jones, A Puritan Theology: Doctrine for Life, 120).

“Christ woos and wins His bride in an ever-deepening relationship” (Joel R. Beeke & Mark Jones, A Puritan Theology: Doctrine for Life, 109).

It was a glorious Lord’s Day. This afternoon I finished reading (first edition) Ned B. Stonehouse’s J. Gresham Machen: A Biographical Memoir.

Below are a loose collection of thoughts, some talking points (largely dependent/derived from J. W. Nevin’s History and Genius of the Heidelberg Catechism) from a short, high-overview talk that I gave about the German-Reformation at our church’s annual Reformation Celebration.

1. The Reformation was not something that flared up overnight; it had been developing within the Roman Catholic Church for some time, e.g., Wycliffe – “the Morning Star of the Reformation” – was born nearly two-hundred years before Luther nailed his Ninety-Five Theses on the door at Wittenberg. Nevin calls the Middle Ages the “womb” of the Reformation; he says that the Church, by God’s Spirit, gave birth to the Reformation. 
2. Because the Reformation was something birthed in the Church by God’s Spirit, Nevin says, “[Luther and the other Reformers] did not make the Reformation. The Reformation made them.”
3. Because the Reformation was something that God’ Spirit was birthing within the church, we cannot say the Reformation was bound only to Germany (although German was the “proper cradle of the Reformation”). This was a movement that occurred across the board, i.e., in France, Switzerland, the Netherlands, England, Scotland, etc.
4. The “Reformed Church” found its initial distinction through opposition to Roman Catholicism in France; there it first known as the “Catholic Church Reformed” – in time it became a “technical term”, a form of nomenclature that distinguished it from both Lutheranism and Romanism.
5. “The Reformed Church was the national Protestantism of Switzerland, France, Netherlands, Scotland and England, and eventually the German Palatinate (South-Western Germany).”
6. The Catechism of the Palatinate (aka – Heidelberg Catechism) was chiefly written by Zacharius Ursinus, who was trained at Wittenberg by Luther’s successor (Melanchthon).
7. Heidelberg Catechism was “eagerly accepted by other Reformed Synods”, e.g., Synod of Dort included the Catechism as one of the Three Forms of Unity, and even now its acceptance and use are widespread. 

“Prayer is in one sense an expression of a Christian’s unbroken relationship with the Father” (Donald S. Whitney, Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life, 67).

Thus saith C. H. Spurgeon: “Doctrine without exhortation makes men all brain, no heart; exhortation without doctrine makes the heart full, leaves the brain empty. Both together make a man.”

“One reason why we persist in baptizing babies – helpless, dependent, sinful, little things that babies are – because each of us, at any age, is helpless, dependent, in need of God doing for us what we cannot do for ourselves” (William H. Willimon & Stanley Hauerwas, Lord, Teach Us: The Lord’s Prayer and the Christian Life, 28).

Amen, indeed.

“Baptism reminds us that all of us have been adopted. We call it grace. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people (1 Peter 2:10). Therefore it is never quite right to say things like, “Since I took Jesus into my heart,” or “Since I gave my life to Christ.” Our relationship to Jesus is his idea before it is ours. We don’t take Jesus anywhere. He takes us places” (William H. Willimon & Stanley Hauerwas, Lord, Teach Us: The Lord’s Prayer and the Christian Life, 27).

And speaking of war and fighting . . . I’ve always enjoyed this Vonnegut quote from Hocus Pocus:

If there really had been a Mercutio, and if there really were a Paradise, Mercutio might be hanging out with teenage Vietnam draftee casualties now, talking about what it felt like to die for other people’s vanity and foolishness.

Petty squabbles ought to be avoided. The collateral damage, for both petty political wars and petty theological wars, is absolutely brutal.

In a chapter titled The Fight, J. C. Ryle says, “He that would understand the true nature of true holiness must know that the Christian is ‘a man of war.’ If we would be holy we must fight.”

J. C. Ryle is elaborating on Paul’s words to Timothy, ‘Fight the good fight of faith,’ and methinks Ryle provides the proper balance to cultivating a fighter-mentality when he says:

With whom is the Christian soldier meant to fight? Not with other Christians. Wretched indeed is that man’s idea of religion who fancies that it consists in perpetual controversy! He who is never satisfied unless he is engaged in some strife between church and church, chapel and chapel, sect and sect, faction and faction, party and party, knows nothing yet as he ought to know. No doubt it may be absolutely needful sometime to appeal to law courts, in order to ascertain the right interpretation of a Church’s Articles, and rubrics, and formularies. But, as a general rule, the cause of sin is never so much helped as when Christians waste their strength in quarreling with one another, and spend their time in petty squabbles (J. C. Ryle, Holiness, 52).

There is a danger in calling someone a soldier, i.e., like the young boy who is given his first hammer and sees a world-of-nails, so a Christian when called to be a soldier must remember they are a peacemaker-soldier.

Warfare is real; doctrinal battles need to be fought. We must remember, however, petty squabbles do not constituted legitimate war.