Pastor Shaun Marksbury

 As I mentioned in my sermon this morning, the Roman Catholic Church uses this passage as a proof text about a monastic vow of chastity.  Calvin on this vow: “The attempt of the Papists to support, by means of this passage, a vow of perpetual celibacy, is absurd. Granting that it was customary to exact from the widows an engagement in express terms, still they would gain nothing by this admission. First, we must consider the end. The reason why widows formerly promised to remain unmarried, was not that they might lead a holier life than in a state of marriage, but because they could not, at the same time, be devoted to husbands and to the Church; but in Popery, they make a vow of continence, as if it were a virtue acceptable to God on its own account. Secondly, in that age they renounced the liberty of marrying at the time when they ceased to be marriageable; for they must have been, at least, sixty years old, and, by being satisfied with being once married, must have already ...

Struggle with understanding the unity aspect of the Trinity?  Many do and have. For instance, one heretical group in the Middle East was known to Mohammed, and as such, the Qur'an says that Christians believe in three, not one God.  What does Scripture say? Calvin explains: ________________________________________________ Moreover, because God more clearly disclosed himself in the coming of Christ, thus he also became known more familiarly in three persons. But of the many testimonies this one will suffice for us. For Paul so connects these three—God, faith, and baptism [Eph. 4:5]—as to reason from one to the other: namely, because faith is one, that he may thereby show God to be one; because baptism is one, that he may thence show faith also to be one. Therefore, if through baptism we are initiated into the faith and religion of one God, we must consider him into whose name we are baptized to be the true God. Indeed, there is no doubt that Christ willed by thi...

In Mark 14:36, Jesus prays, “Abba! Father! All things are possible for You; remove this cup from Me; yet not what I will, but what You will.” But, if Jesus is God, then isn't His will God's will?  Why does it appear that His will has to conform to God's? Remember that, in the incarnation, Jesus became like us in every way.  That includes developing a human will.  As such, while He never sinned in His flesh, His will had to learn submission by facing temptation and overcoming it. In fact, the teaching that Jesus only has a single will (divine) rather than two wills (human and divine) is heretical.  Calvin explains, This passage shows plainly enough the gross folly of those ancient heretics, who were called Monothelites , because they imagined that the will of Christ was but one and simple; for Christ, as he was God, willed nothing different from the Father; and therefore it follows, that his human soul had affections distinct from the secret purpose of God. ...