This last Sunday, the sermon at Christ Church sought to explain what Jesus was referring to when He said that those who believed in Him would do greater works than He had done. The answer appears to be that we are to reveal and manifest the Father, in a manner analagous to what Jesus did. …
Paint More Than the Nose
“It is not true that some doctrines are only for the initiated; there is nothing in the Bible which is ashamed of the light . . . All revealed truth in harmonious proportion must be your theme . . . Do not insist perpetually upon one truth alone. A nose is an important feature in …
I Age Mine in the Basement, Like a Fine Wine
“It takes judgment to know when prejudice should be maintained and when abandoned. Prejudices are like friendships: they should be kept in good repair. Friends sometimes grow apart, and so sometimes should men from their prejudices; but friends often grows deeper with age and experience, and so should some prejudices. They are what give men …
Over Hill and Dale
“When Christ and the apostles preached, the established religious authorities were on the scene asking what appears to be their favorite question” ‘By what authority?’ John the Baptist was an eccentric hill preacher, Caiaphas had better establishment credentials than Jesus, and the Sanhedrin was amazed that men so obviously uneducated as the apostles could say …
Better Christians Than Logicians
After his Introduction, but before his first chapter, John Piper includes a short chapter on the necessity of — given the state of the world — controversy and polemics. He writes this as a pastor. “I am a pastor first. Polemics are secondary and serve that” (p. 27). In short, shepherds are to fight because …
Four Horses
In the previous vision God has spoken about how judgment begins with the household of God. But this does not mean that judgment never comes to the enemies of God. Here we turn to discover that the purposes of God in judgment are consistently displayed throughout the entire earth. “Then I turned and raised my …
Natural Antipathy
The word agon is rendered as contention in 1 Thess. 2:2 — “we were bold in our God to speak unto you the gospel of God with much contention.” Everywhere else in the New Testament it is used in a positive sense. It usually means conflict or fight (Phil. 1:30; Col. 2:1; 1 Tim. 6:12; …
Pulpit Bombast
“It is infamous to ascend your puplit and pour over your people rivers of language, cataracts of words, in which mere platitudes are held in solution like infinitesimal grains of homeopathic medicine in an Atlantic of utterance” (Charles Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students, p. 74).
Genesis of Domestic Violence
“It proved far easier in the event to remove sexual restraint than to overcome each individual’s desire for the exclusive sexual possession of another; and it takes little effort of the imagination, even if we would rather not make it, to understand the result.” (Theodore Dalrymple, In Praise of Prejudice, p. 108).
And That Means Publishing Books
“Because the business of the Church is to multiply sound teaching, this means that we should be about our business — utilizing all available means. The early Christians were accused of filling Jerusalem with their doctrine (Acts 5:28). Isn’t it about time we were accused of doing something similar? (Mother Kirk, p. 259).