INTRODUCTION: As we work through this chapter of Romans, we will find ourselves reinforcing the same principle over and over—love your brother, while keeping the big deals big, the middle deals middle, and the small deals small. Keep a sense of proportion—and as you monitor these things, look to your own sense of proportion first …
Less Glory Is More
The Bible teaches us that the times of the new covenant are attended with a greater glory than the old covenant, as well as with a greater simplicity. In effect, that simplicity is part of the glory. The arrival of Jesus the Messiah was not a signal for us to lapse into some kind of …
Our New Birthright
As you teach your children how to come to this Table, one of the things you should be cultivating is this: we come because we were invited, not because we are entitled. The invitation proceeded from grace, and is extended to us in grace. We don’t deserve any of it. The response we should have, …
The Fourth Commandment Raised
Our Father and God, You have established Your Church as a royal priesthood in this world, and so we intercede for the nations of men now, confessing on their behalf so that the grace of Your forgiveness will soon be extended to them all. Father, we confess that we as a people have wandered away …
Trace Elements of the Coming Glory
Last night my wife took a picture off our east deck (with her phone), and that pic is posted below. She put it up on her blog, and I wanted to do the same here, because it illustrates a point I have often wondered about. Why is it that nature photography is so limited, in …
Obama Rides a Dragon While Waving His Cowboy Hat
The second section of Hunter’s book To Change the World begins with a very short chapter, so I will consider it and the following chapter together. I want to begin by differing with what I believe to be a premature assessment, one that I commented on earlier. “As we have seen, though, Christians have embraced …
As Godly as it Might Look to Some
“The upshot is that not everything ‘righteous’ is all that good. Not everything ‘sinful’ is all that bad. Only a fool jumps to pious and edifying conclusions” (Joy at the End of the Tether, p. 78).
A Potent Place
“Indeed, if you preach well, a great deal of counseling, and even church discipline, goes on from the pulpit” (Wagner, Tongues Aflame, p. 298).
Telling the World that Jesus Won
The devil went down. No, the devil didn’t go down to Georgia, he just went down.
The Kettle Drummer in the Back
The flotilla fiasco, as it is now being called, provides us with a textbook case of how nations get themselves into wars. The run-up to wars is frequently not a matter of clearly defined and contrary objectives from two hostile powers, but rather a muddled, tangled mess. Nations usually don’t march quick-step to war, but …