We are taught that we must become upright people who, in God’s sight, are blameless and fully keep His commandments. “In the time of Herod king of Judea there was a priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly division of Abijah; his wife Elizabeth was also a descendant of Aaron. Both of them were righteous in the sight of God, observing all the Lord’s commands and decrees blamelessly” [(Modern Translation: “When Herod was king of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah of the division of Abijah, and his wife Elizabeth also came from the family of Aaron. They were righteous before God and faithfully kept all the Lord’s commandments and regulations without fault”)] (Luke 1:5–6). While meditating on this passage, I would like to draw out the lessons given to us: (1) The author of Luke’s Gospel, Luke, first wrote to Theophilus about John the Baptist’s parents. The father’s name was “Zechariah” (meaning, “The LORD remembers...
https://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/john-calvin-necessity-reforming-church John Calvin on the Necessity for Reforming the Church W. Robert Godfrey 9 Min Read More than 450 years ago, a request came to John Calvin to write on the character of and need for reform in the church. The circumstances were quite different from those that inspired other writings of Calvin, and enable us to see other dimensions of his defense of the Reformation. The Emperor Charles V was calling the Diet of the Holy Roman Empire to meet in the city of Speyer in 1544. Martin Bucer, the great reformer of Strassburg, appealed to Calvin to draft a statement of the doctrines of and necessity for the Reformation. The result was remarkable. Theodore Beza, Calvin’s friend and successor in Geneva, called “The Necessity for Reforming the Church” the most powerful work of his time. Calvin organizes the work into three large sections. The first section is devoted to the evils in the church that required reformatio...