Speaker
James M. Renihan
7 sermons · All speakers
A Trinitarian Blessing
What does it mean for a church letter full of conflict, rebuke, and difficult confrontation to close with a sweeping word of blessing? Paul's benediction in 2 Corinthians 13:14 — the most elevated Trinitarian affirmation in the New Testament — does exactly that, pronouncing grace, love, and communion upon a fractious and sinning congregation without exception. The sermon distinguishes the benediction (a word of blessing descending from heaven to God's people) from the doxology (praise ascending from earth to God), tracing how each element of the Trinitarian blessing — the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the communion of the Holy Spirit — flows downward from the triune God as spiritual reality, not mere concept. The application is pointed: whatever the believer's besetting sin, weakness of assurance, or relational difficulty, the remedy begins not with human effort but with receiving the grace, love, and fellowship that the triune God lavishes upon his people.
Baptism in the Old Testament
The washings of the Old Covenant — priestly consecration, the Day of Atonement, and ritual purification — constitute the Old Testament type to which New Testament baptism is the antitype, not circumcision as pedobaptist argument typically asserts. This session of a three-part seminar argues that Jesus' baptism marked his public entry into priestly ministry, and that believers are baptized because they, too, are priests to God who must be consecrated for access into his presence. The session draws on Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Hebrews, and 1 Peter to build a biblical theology of water and cleansing, urging a recovery of genuine appreciation for baptism as a meaningful ordinance rather than a mere formality.
The Theater of His Glory
Psalm 19 sets creation and Scripture side by side as God's two books of revelation: the heavens declare His glory in every language to every people, while the Word of God converts the soul and opens eyes to see what unbelief cannot perceive. The sermon works through the psalm to show that general revelation leaves all people without excuse before God, yet only the regenerate, illumined by the Spirit through Scripture, properly receive the theater of God's glory. The three closing applications call Christians to train their children in a Christ-centered view of both books of revelation, to cultivate daily awareness of God's hand in creation, and above all to prize the Word of God as the supreme gift that leads to life and holiness.
A Cry from God's Oubliette
Psalm 88 is the most sorrowful psalm in the entire Psalter — a cry from one whom God has placed in what the preacher calls an 'oubliette,' the lowest and most forgotten prison in a medieval dungeon. Heman the Ezraite, whose name means 'faithful,' addresses the covenant LORD from the depths of unrelieved affliction, offering no tidy resolution but only the continued cry of faith in darkness. The sermon argues that this psalm validates the reality of deep suffering among God's faithful people, calls the church to companionship with those who suffer, and ultimately points to the Lord Jesus Christ, who descended into a darker oubliette than any of his people will ever know — and who therefore sympathizes with and intercedes for all who cry out to God in their trouble.
CTF 2024 Session 4: The Uniting Power of our Reformed Confessions
The ecumenical creeds of the first five centuries — the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed, the Chalcedonian Definition, and the Athanasian Creed — form the doctrinal bedrock upon which the Reformation confessions, including the Westminster Confession, the Savoy Declaration, and the Second London Confession of Faith, were deliberately built. This address traces the historical controversies (Arianism, Eutychianism, Monophysitism, Monothelitism) that provoked each creed, demonstrates the precise linguistic dependence of the 1689 LBCF upon creedal formulations, and argues that this shared inheritance constitutes genuine theological unity among confessional Reformed and Reformed Baptist churches. The practical conclusion is that ministers must teach these creeds and their underlying doctrines — Trinitarian theology, the hypostatic union — as the bedrock of Christian comfort, not merely as academic curiosity.
CTF 2024 Session 1: An Engaging Overview of the Second London Confession of Faith
The Second London Confession of Faith (1689) did not arise in a vacuum but was forged in response to specific doctrinal crises and pastoral needs within the 17th-century particular Baptist churches. This address traces the historical circumstances behind the Confession's 1677 publication — including the Christological heresies of Thomas Collier and Matthew Caffin, the threat of Quaker mysticism, fear of Roman Catholic resurgence, and the pastoral concern for family catechesis. The speaker then surveys the Confession's 32 chapters as a coherent theological architecture, showing how its structure reflects the covenant of grace viewed from both divine and human perspectives. Listeners are urged to recover the Confession as a living instrument of orthodoxy, protection, instruction, and proclamation for the church today.
CTF 2024 Session 3: A Robust Defense of the Scriptures
Creeds and confessions are not supplements to Scripture but summaries of its central propositional content, necessary for intelligent faith, faithful evangelism, and the defense of orthodoxy. Drawing on Romans 12:1-2, James Renihan argues that right living always flows from right believing, and that the theological, ethical, and redemptive-historical dimensions of Scripture all demand that Christians be able to articulate the facts of the faith. Confessions function positively to state the contents of the faith and connect believers across time and place, and negatively to identify error and mark the boundaries of true Christianity. The session closes with a survey of confessional language embedded in the New Testament itself — from the Shema to the apostolic christological summaries — demonstrating that creeds are not a human invention imposed on Scripture but a distillation of what Scripture already teaches.