Contributor: R. Scott Clark

The Wounded Beast Shall Rise From time to time, Protestants have been tempted to think that the Roman communion has been dealt a fatal blow. History, however, tells us that though she has been wounded from time to time, she always returns. However vigorous the Reformed churches may be in…
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Introduction None of us knows the specifics of the future. There are a few things that every Christian knows from Scripture about the future. We know that Christ shall return (Acts 1:11), that there shall be a bodily resurrection (1 Thess 4:16), and after that the judgment (Rom 14:10). The…
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R. Scott Clark Professor of Church History & Historical Theology Perhaps the first post-Apostolic use of the New Testament verb “to justify” (δικαιόω) occurs in 1 Clement, written just after 100 AD to the same Corinthian congregation to whom Paul had written half a century earlier. There is no claim…
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The Old-Fashioned Way WSC is old-fashioned in other ways as well. Unlike many seminaries, we still require students to learn to read God's Word in the original languages. This was the vision of our founder, J. Gresham Machen, that Westminster would produce men who are experts in the Bible. For…
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Follow the Money In the discussion over the question, "Why seminary?" a frequent objection is that seminary is too expensive. The assumption here seems to be that professional training for our ministers could be done less expensively by frugal pastors who know what they are doing. Well, the administrative overhead…
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Seminary and the Church There is a movement afoot to change the way seminary students are educated. Dissatisfied with the results produced by some schools, some congregations have begun their own in-house seminaries on the ground that sending students away to seminary take them out of the local church. Yes,…
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The Scholar-Pastor At WSC we are still old-fashioned enough to believe that a seminary education comes only one way: through hard work. Therefore, while many seminaries are now advertising (quite seductively it seems!) that one can earn a seminary degree without ever leaving home, at WSC we believe that self-sacrifice…
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Is seminary worth it? R. Scott Clark answers this question with a resounding "yes." His reasoning will be posted in a series appearing on Thursdays.   Over the years many things have changed at Westminster Seminary California (WSC). In the most important ways, however, the seminary has not changed. We…
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IV. Consolation Preached In part one of this series we considered Calvin’s interpretation of several biblical passages on consolation. In part two we looked at how he harvested a theology of consolation from his exegetical work. In part three we examined what he wrote in his Institutes on consolation, and…
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III. Consolation and Pastoral Ministry For Calvin, christian consolation is not only a theological reality but it is also the result of good pastoral practice. Christians often fail to appropriate the consolation they might because they don’t humble themselves to confess their sins to one another. Let us take the…
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