Our practice of weekly communion comes out of our understanding of covenant renewal worship. The natural progression moves from confession to consecration, and from consecration to communion. We want this progression to occur every time we worship God. The heart of biblical worship is organized around Word and sacrament. But we do not understand this …
Sins Are Like Grapes
“At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16: 11) The Basket Case Chronicles #54 “Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, …
Seriously Religitudinous
“For Christians, this is beside the point. We don’t believe religion is the answer. We believe Christ is the answer. When you combine religion with sinners, what you get is religious sin. And when you combine serious religion with sinners, what you get is serious religious sin. All this does is confirm one of the …
And the Grape Juice of Therapeutic Entertainment Does Not
“The strong wine of Jesus Christ explodes the wineskins of professionalism” (Piper, Brothers, We Are Not Professionals, p. 3).
Preaching a Felt Christ
“The preacher worthy of the name, the preacher after God’s heart, then, must proclaim the written Word of God indeed; but he must preach it — and that precisely makes it preaching — as it has come to light in his own heart and mind” (Volbeda, The Pastoral Genius of Preaching, p. 27).
A Cloud of Contumely
If Herman Cain did not do the things that are alleged of him, then he should soldier on. If he did do them, and is lying about it now, then he should retire from the field in a cloud of contumely. All the spectators, meantime, should meditate on what constitutes proof, and assume the accusation …
You Can’t Get Ten Pounds of Information
“Scientists who have their satellite dishes pointed toward the sky in the hope of hearing from intelligent life out there know how to distinguish incoming messages from background noise. Otherwise, there would be no point. We know what information looks like, and we know what kind of source it comes from. This is because information …
With the Exception of Their Own Religious Convictions, Serenely Above It All
“Once upon a time tolerance was the power that kept lovers of competing faiths from killing each other. It was the principle that put freedom above forced conversion. It was rooted in the truth that coerced conviction is no conviction. That is true tolerance. But now the new professional tolerance denies that there are any …
A Preacher Well Tuned
“Surely, that written Word of God is pastoral through and through in its message, spirit, and purpose. Therefore the spoken proclamation of that pastoral Word calls for an agent who is himself in heart and mind in perfect harmony with the pastoral Scriptures which he must preach . . . Before one can preach in …
A Preacher Well Tuned
“Surely, that written Word of God is pastoral through and through in its message, spirit, and purpose. Therefore the spoken proclamation of that pastoral Word calls for an agent who is himself in heart and mind in perfect harmony with the pastoral Scriptures which he must preach . . . Before one can preach in …