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The aspects of the revival of Presbyterianism during the Reformation period had emphases in theology and church government. In theology, Presbyterianism returned to its Biblical roots in its emphasis on salvation by grace alone and its rejection of human merit as the guarantor of acceptance with God. In church government,…
Due to the false teaching of Jacobus Ariminius (1560–1609), who was a semipelagian denying the doctrine of original sin and man’s total inability, the reformed churches in the united Netherlands were greatly troubled by his followers, who heavily criticized the teachings of the Protestant Reformers, including John Calvin. These troublers…
For about one thousand years, the vestiges of the system of church government that the apostles of Christ established languished beneath the oppression that the papal religion cultivated in the world. The power of the Roman Catholic clergy, the bishops especially, increasingly drew its authority from the papacy. The reign of…
Historical developments that started while the Apostles were alive began to accelerate with their deaths. The structure of church government on which the apostles agreed, that is, a Presbyterian system in which the people elected elders to conduct the business of the congregations and to stress the interdependency of the…
Debates over the method of church government have absorbed much energy and time. Particularly, those who favor a congregational or independent model of church government have insisted throughout the decades that the New Testament presents no other model, and that if it does, the peculiarities of the apostolic age rendered…
The Aztecs were several tribes in the North of Mexico that settled near the Lake of the Texcoco and dwelt there until their conquest in 1521. Prior to the arrival of the Spaniards, the Aztecs, or more appropriately the “Mexicas”, were the dominant civilization, politically, militarily, and culturally. The concept…
When Playmobil produced a Martin Luther figurine to commemorate the Reformation, the German manufacturer could not keep this new toy on the shelves. Dressed in sixteenth century academic robes, replete with cap, scroll and quill, and holding a copy of his New Testament in German, the figurine had a first…
Martin Luther has been called, along with the Apostle Paul and Augustine, one of the three greatest theologians of the Christian church. Luther, however, never meant to be a great theologian. He certainly never meant to shake the foundations of Europe as he did. Martin Luther was originally concerned only…
