Divine Simplicity

Over the past few years I’ve noticed, along with other colleagues and friends in ministry, that while there is a lot of good written content out there from our Reformed neck of the woods, there isn’t nearly as much when it comes to video. Yes, there are plenty of recorded sermons, conference messages, and lecture series. But we don’t have a lot of short explainer videos, especially when it comes to theology and history.

So, about a year ago I started exploring what it would take to make a professional level explainer video for various topics and terms in systematic theology. I got a board together and started a ministry called Clearly Reformed. You may hear more about that in the weeks and months ahead. Initially the plan was to make a whole series of theological explainer videos. The good news: we got a great crew together to record a professional level video with teaching on the doctrine of divine simplicity. The bad news: it took a lot of time and a lot of money. The time and money aren’t anyone’s fault, that’s just what it takes to make a video like this. We tried one and learned what it takes.

The upshot is that the “pilot episode” on divine simplicity is the only video we’ve made as Clearly Reformed. We have other ideas for the ministry and other ideas for the explainer concept. We are exploring more time efficient and cost-effective ways (e.g., a new podcast, a teaching series) to deliver the same sort of theological content. I am under contract with Crossway to do a book that will include 260 short chapters on theological terms and themes. So a book is definitely in the works, hopefully other complementary projects too.

All that to say, we’ve had this video for several months now and haven’t been sure what to do with it. But whether we make another video like this or (more likely) go in a different direction, we thought one video was better than zero videos! So take a look, and if the video is helpful for you or your church, feel free to use it.