Portraits of Protestants

The Forgotten Women of the Reformation from Crossway on Vimeo. The untold story of the Reformation is of the women of the Reformation. We tend to tell the story of all the men, and that's because they were pastors, and believe based on the teachings of Scripture, that...

2 Essential Doctrines of the Reformation from Crossway on Vimeo. Authority of Scripture The Reformation addressed many different theological issues, and as an entire movement, affected a reformation for the whole church. There were at least two issues—two doctrines...

 Why the Reformation Isn't Over from Crossway on Vimeo. More Than History People might think that the Reformation is irrelevant today—just a feature on the pages of history. And they may not like history so they might not find that at all interesting. People might...

1. The Pope started the Reformation. The fourteenth century was a bad time for the papacy. For a period, there were two rival popes and the papacy was under pressure from the French monarchy. It wasn’t a good time for the city of Rome either—seven successive popes...

Soli Deo Gloria – for the glory of God alone – is the motto that grew out of the Protestant Reformation. At the core of this motto is the pulse beat of Christianity – we have been saved by grace to the praise of His glorious grace (Eph. 1:6). All things lead to the...

When tasked with writing about Martin Luther, there are many ways to approach the man. There are books on his influence on the Christian life, biographies aplenty, commentaries on his Tabletalk’s commentaries on his letters and writings, there are even books devoted...

1. Reformed theology celebrates the glory of God. The heart and soul of Reformed theology is the glory of the triune God (Ps. 96:3; John 17:1). For this reason, it is often called “God-centered” theology. B. B. Warfield said, “The Calvinist, in a word, is the man who...

A Brief Introduction to the Life and Ministry of John Calvin from Crossway on Vimeo. God Changes Calvin’s Plans When we first meet John Calvin, we find him at the University of Paris, and he’s twelve years old. We sometimes make a big deal about the fact that he was a...

Dispelling Urban Legends Like many larger-than-life figures in the history of the church, the memory of the French Reformer John Calvin has been subjected to various distortions that amount to urban legends. Myth #1: Calvin had Michael Servetus executed. During what...

When we consider the Reformers, we may picture strong men and women with booming voices that echoed around the gathered crowd. We picture them as fearless, rebuking whoever contradicted the true teachings of Scripture, calling out heresy for what it was. But this...

Jan Hus was born in 1372 in the small bustling village of Hussenic, Bohemia, which is in modern-day Czech Republic. Ironically enough, his village's name means “Goosetown,” and his last name means “Goose,” but we’ll get to more of that later. Jan Hus was a common...