Media Gratiae

Media Gratiae is a division of American Family Studios, and is committed to producing multimedia projects that are, as their name indicates, focused on the means of grace.

Media Gratiae is Latin for “the means of grace.”

Fallen man receives all the blessings of salvation out of the eternal fountain of the grace of God, in virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ and through the operation of the Holy Spirit. While the Spirit can and does in some respects operate immediately on the soul of the sinner, He has seen fit to bind Himself largely to the use of certain means in the communication of divine grace. (L. Berkhof)

In other words, Christ has fully accomplished the redemption that the Father planned, and now the Spirit is applying that grace in time to the lives of God’s people all around the world. God has appointed certain “means” to serve as the channels through which the Spirit applies that grace. The scope of the work Media Gratiae produces is meant to give aid to the church in its task of fulfilling the Great Commission by the use of those means.

We believe that the chief means of grace is God’s word. It alone has the promise of being the power of God unto salvation (Rom. 1:16; 1 Cor. 1:16). Paul tells us that faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. In doing so, he elevates the preached word of God to the foreground as the means by which God’s own voice is heard by sinners (Rom. 10:13-17). Paul’s determination to preach Christ and Him crucified is understood in light of the fact that it is the voice of our Saviour that brings dead men out of their tombs (John 5:25).

In Acts 2 we see that the early church not only gave themselves to the apostles’ teaching and prayer, but also to fellowship with one another. In addition to the crucial fellowship we experience by being committed to a local body of believers, we can also experience something of “the communion of the saints” by making use of Christian Biography. In this way we can be helped by the example of those who have followed our Lord before us, and follow Paul’s admonition to keep our eyes on those who walk according to the example we have in him.

Two lines from a hymn by John Berridge — one a statement, the other an earnest prayer — sum up the mission and hope of Media Gratiae:

The means of grace are in my hand,
The blessing is at God’s command
Who must the work fulfil;
And tho’ I read, and watch, and pray,
Yet here the Lord directs my way,
And worketh all things still.

Prepare my tongue to pray and praise,
To speak of providential ways,
And heavenly truths unfold;
To strengthen well a feeble soul,
Correct the wanton, rouse the dull,
And silence sinners bold.