From Editor: This article by Dr. Thomas K. Johnson (United States and Czech Republic) is an introductory chapter in the upcoming WRF/WEA book on The Decalogue and is posted here in its entirety. Dr. Thomas invites "you, as disciples and students who belong to Jesus, to join in the process of lifelong learning from our covenant God. Blessed are those who meditate on God’s law!"

From Editor: This article by Dr. Thomas K. Johnson (United States and Czech Republic) is a chapter in the upcoming WRF/WEA book on The Decalogue and is posted here in its entirety. Dr. Thomas challenges believers not to look upon God's law with the terrible feeling of those who "only know its condemning use", but to understand that "once we really know God's grace, we can see what a treasure God's law is... We can say with the psalmist, 'Oh, how I love your law' (Psalm 119:97)."

From Editor: This article by Professor Pierre Berthoud (France) is a chapter in the upcoming WRF/WEA book on The Decalogue and is posted here in its entirety. In the chapter, Prof. Berthoud offers a very important reflection about the nature and origin of the Commandments. He masterfully shows how they are "an amazing and challenging invitation to reconsider and practice, within a dismantled and broken world that has lost its bearings, the “law of Christ” as fully manifested and accomplished in Jesus of Nazareth!"

Is the use of some kind of conflict resolution tied to legal process sensible and justified (e.g., witnesses, defense, judges, independent appraisers, mediators, legal transcripts)? Many Christians object, at least in theory, to going to court or to using the methods of a constitutional state. They object all the more that Christians go to court against each other or use the methods of the constitutional state in connection with Christian activities or churches.

Here are two diagnostic questions for Christians that need very honest answers. Here’s the first: if you go to church and also are in a Bible study and prayer group, do they complement each other, so that you get something from one that you don’t from the other? What, specifically?

“Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth?" Paul, Galatians 4:16

"For Christ has freed us from the curse of the Law, not from obedience to it."  Martin Luther, Sermon on Galatians 3: 23 - 24

Not long after the conclusion of the Synod of Dordrecht the Puritan party in the Church of England proposed that the Canons of Dort be adopted as an official Anglican confessional standard.  

  A Few Remarks on the Evangelical Fascination with the “Sacramental Tapestry” — A Book Review of Hans Boersma’s Two Volumes on the Topic

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 CELEBRATING THE START - NOT THE END - OF THE REFORMATION: Challenges and Opportunities for 2018 and Beyond

A Paper Delivered at the WRF Reformation Conference in Wittenberg, Germany by Dr. Herman J. Selderhuis

 “Martin Luther and Jonathan Edwards: A Fuller Understanding of Justification By Faith Alone”

[This is a slightly revised version of a presentation which was given on October 26, 2017, at the WRF Reformation Conference in Wittenberg, Germany.]

500 years ago at the dawning of the reformation, the life of a woman was not easy. Most were illiterate. The nobility would have had tutors to provide some formal education for their children including the girls. The only option for the rest was to join a religious order.  In the convents, the nuns, whatever their social background, became articulate and well educated in the classics and spiritual literature.

I have taken the liberty of a very small change in title in light of what I have learned in the year since I agreed to give this speech. Of course, a “Great Gulf” was the term used by Karl Barth, a century ago, to describe Protestant-Catholic relations, and it is still a good descriptor.