The goal at Dear Exiles is to create content that encourages Christians to live as pilgrims, promotes the Reformed faith, and proclaims the gospel of Jesus Christ — all to the glory of God.

Our name is taken from I Peter 2:11, where Peter refers to his readers as “sojourners and exiles,” as he encourages them to “abstain from the passions of the flesh” which war against the soul. (Our logo, which includes a shield [wage war] and a pathway [sojourners] seeks to capture this duality.) Speaking of this text, John Calvin remarked that “the children of God, wherever they may be, are only guests in this world.” We understand that as Christians, “our citizenship is in heaven,” (Phil. 3:20) and “here we have no lasting city,” (Heb. 13:14) but like many who have gone before us, we look “forward to a city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God” (Heb. 11:10).

John Gill says of these exiles that “the place for which they are bound is heaven, the better country, where is their Father’s house, their friends, and their inheritance; this world not being their country, nor their resting place.” Indeed, all those who place their faith and trust in Christ alone – whose only comfort in life and in death is that they belong, both in body and soul to their Savior Jesus Christ – are bound for a better country. Yet, as Augustine observed in his magisterial work, The City of God, we still have a duty in this world. We are ambassadors (II Cor. 5:20). As we labor here, we are called to walk in the way of holiness (Isaiah 35:8-10). Gill observes, “Christ leads his people in paths of righteousness; in the paths of truth, of ordinances, and of worship, public and private, all which are holy; and in the path of Gospel conversion and godliness.”

Our hope at Dear Exiles is to encourage fellow pilgrims bound for the better country as they walk in the way of holiness. In so doing, we hope to promote the Reformed faith and proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ. These two commitments – to a historic, confessional faith and the apostolic, gospel message – direct us as we create content for this purpose.

To do this, we hope to reintroduce the thoughts and writings of many Christian pilgrims that have gone before us. That doesn’t mean our content will exclude modern writers – but it does mean we are committed to exposing Christians to the “old paths” and those that walked in them. Much of our content will reflect this commitment to brothers and sisters from the past. We will focus our effort in five major areas:

When we say that we are committed to promoting the Reformed faith, we are referring to the tradition that has been passed down to us from the Protestant Reformation, which was at its heart, a return to the apostolic faith of the New Testament. It begins with the Five Solas – faith alone by grace alone through Christ alone as revealed in Scripture alone all to the glory of God alone – and includes a commitment to the doctrines of grace as confirmed in the Canons of Dort. It maintains a biblically-informed view of worship as expressed in the regulative principle and it affirms the timeless nature of the Moral Law as a rule and guide for the Christian life.

Specifically, Dear Exiles affirms the 1689 London Baptist Confession (LBCF) as a guiding statement of faith. Along with the Westminster Confession and the Three Forms of Unity, the LBCF agrees with each of these major doctrinal emphases. Confessionalism does not replace the authority of Scripture, but rather, it upholds it. As the LBCF affirms, “The Holy Scripture is the only sufficient, certain, and infallible rule of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience.” For more on the importance of confessionalism, go here.

As Spurgeon once said of the LBCF, “This ancient document is the most excellent epitome of the things most surely believed among us. It is not issued as an authoritative rule or code of faith, whereby you may be fettered, but as a means of edification in righteousness. It is an excellent, though not inspired, expression of the teaching of those Holy Scriptures by which all confessions are to be measured.”