On the death of Kim Jong Il, one wit tweeted that he liked to think that God had let Havel and Hitchens decide who would be the third one to go. That’s funny, but if ideas have consequences, and they do, then there are a few other considerations. We often say, when someone passes away, …
The Death of His Saints
“Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints” (Ps. 116:15). Denise Sproul, the wife of R.C. Sproul, Jr., went to be with the Lord this morning. Please be praying for her family and her friends in their time of grief. But as the apostle Paul said, to be absent from …
A Theology of Christmas Gifts
INTRODUCTION:One of the most obvious features of our Christmas celebrations is the gift-giving. How are we to understand this as Christians? What are the pitfalls? Are all the pitfalls obvious? Because our lives are to be lives of grace, and because charis means grace or gift, this is something we have to understand throughout the …
Christ Is Not at the End of a Supply Chain
The Puritan William Bridge noted that it is “man’s disposition to come to God at the second hand.” As we approach the Supper, we are sometimes tempted to think of God as the wholesaler, and the minister of the particular church as the retailer. But that is not how this is at all. God is …
Herod’s Soldiers at the Family Reunion
Being convicted of a sin is not the same thing as feeling vaguely bad about it. In Scripture, conviction is described as being “cut to the heart,” it is a heart-piercing. Jesus was born into this sinful world in order to deal with sin—to really deal with it. He is no false prophet, that we …
Reflections on Christopher Hitchens
Scripture says that it is better to go down to the house of mourning than to the house of laughter (Ecc. 7:2). The reason given in that passage is that this enables the living to “lay it to heart.” The death of Christopher Hitchens should in the first place remind us of our own mortality. …
Just Me Being Silly
Yesterday the House approved the National Defense Authorization Act, and the Senate is likely to do the same today. There is a possibility that the president will sign it, but he might veto it, and things have come to a pretty pass when I am hoping that Obama will protect us from the Republicans. What …
And He Is the One Who Teaches Us
“Our triune God is not one frozen word, eternally stuck. The conversation is everlasting, glorious, swift, and beyond all reckoning. If this conversation were water, do not think of an infinite static ocean, but rather of an infinite cascading waterfall. No top, no bottom, no sides, no back, no front — and falling with infinite …
Which Is a Hindrance
“One reason why people sometimes doubt the abiding value of God-centered preaching is because they have never heard any” (Piper, The Supremacy of God in Preaching, p. 21).
The Life Invasion
“This means that God has spoken Himself into a very imperfect and broken world, and He has done so perfectly. What are the implications of this? This could not happen without bringing the world to life” (Heaven Misplaced, p. 44).