Cornelius Plantinga

What does it mean to have business with God, to engage with the creator of the universe, the Holy One, in life and worship? In this blog Dr. Cornelius Plantinga unpacks that question with the aid of John Calvin’s writing on negotium cum Deo, our business is with God.

“In one of the most famous texts of the Bible, Jesus says that we need to be "born again" (John 3: 3). To enter the Kingdom of God, people need to be conceived by the Holy Spirit and  "born from above." But here a big question comes up: If this wonderful event happened to us, how would we know? What would be the sign?” That is the question that Dr. Cornelius Plantinga ponders this month in his series“Speaking with a Reformed Accent”.

This is the second blog in a series of monthly blogs on “Speaking with a Reformed Accent”. In this blog Dr. Cornelius Plantinga reflects on how the law can be a form of God’s grace, something John Calvin referred to as the third use of the law.

“Many of us speak mere Christianity with a Reformed accent. Following such great reformers as John Calvin and John Knox, we do practice mainstream Christianity. We are not cultists. But we have our own pattern of emphases. When we preach, teach, or speak the faith we sound more like Calvin than like Martin Luther or Thomas Aquinas.” But what does that accent sound like in worship? In this monthly blog series Cornelius Plantinga will examine “points of emphasis in the Reformed tradition and how they show up in worship.”