For me, I just didn't get confessionalism. I thought, why care so much about a confession when there's the Bible. Just read the Bible.
How would you explain confessionalism to someone that's unfamiliar with it?
this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2023
-3 points (28.6% liked)
Reformed Christianity
336 readers
1 users here now
[email protected] exists to be a place where reformed believers, in a broader understanding of the term, can come together, unified by a clear Gospel witness, to exhort one another, spur one another on intellectually in reformed theology, and discuss doctrine.
Rules (draft)
We probably don't need as many rules as on reddit just yet. But some important ones will carry over.
Rule #1 Deal with Each Other in Love
Rule #2 Keep Content Charitable
Rule #3 Keep Content Clean
Rule #5 Maintain the Integrity of the Gospel and Gospel ethics.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
I would say the point of confessions is that the Bible is a large book, and a book that is structured as God's revelation to his people over time, rather than by theological topic. Confessions summarise our understanding of what the Bible as a whole has to say about the main points of the faith. Confessionalism recognises the need for creeds and confessions for the above reason and because people will usually have a theological framework they are applying to understand the Bible, but not declaring it upfront (as in a confession) makes it harder to discuss properly.
I've found The Creedal Imperative by Carl Trueman to be a helpful book on this topic.
Those are good points.
I'll also say that I think it was arrogant of me to just try to understand the Bible without the input of centuries of good scholars, especially when they are like-minded to me, building on the same foundational principles (eg. The Bible is innerant and God's word)
I still struggle with 1. paedobaptism and 2. the Churches assumption of Israel’s promises. I was raised very dispensationalost, and I see some of the weaknesses of that theological framework, and yet I still find it to be very compelling.
I don't struggle with paedobaptism, I just reject it. :-D
For me it took a while to come to terms with Reformed Soteriology. Understanding God's sovereignty is particularly tricky at the best of times and it didn't particularly help that most discussions of it I came across were presenting it as a short 5 points description (where one of the points is "limited atonement", which sounds a bit discouraging). A fuller understanding of it woven into the rest of Reformed theology helped, and I found the description given in the Canons of Dort quite well thought out.
Yeah, I had trouble with limited atonement for a good while too. John Piper had a class that I watched on it and really helped me understand the fuller meaning of that point (along with calling it 'Definite Atonement' instead)
Definite atonement is certainly the better term for it