In the name of the Father, who sent His Son to occupy the womb of a virgin, rejoice. In the name of the Son who gladly went, sing and be glad. And in the name of the Spirit, who enabled that virgin to miraculously conceive, bow down and worship. May the Father, Son, and Holy …
Amen, and Amen
Minister: Lift up your hearts! Congregation: We lift them up to the Lord! Our Lord and God, we praise and magnify You. We bless Your name above every name, and exult in the fact that You are a God above all gods. You promised the world to our father Abraham, and You promised that You …
Bruised Aroma
As we sit down together at this meal, with the Lord Jesus at the head of the table, we are partaking of a very simple meal—bread and wine. Because of this we may mistakenly forget one of the most important features of food and drink, which is the wonderful blessing of aroma. Smell is essential …
Drinking Love
A number of years ago, as a congregation we abandoned the practice of serving grape juice in communion and began serving wine. This was not an incidental change, because we also moved from observing communion monthly to the practice of observing it at the culmination of each service. Although we did this, we also reserved …
More to Being Reformed Than Believing in Jesus and Smoking Cigars
Most weeks we have a Friday morning men’s prayer meeting, followed by a breakfast. The discussion at breakfast is frequently rowdy, and this last week it turned to the events surrounding Steve Wilkins — what Scott Clark might want to style as a Westminster necktie party. In the course of the discussion, I made the …
No Countermeasures
God in His great wisdom has determined that He will bring the nations to serve Him, and He will do so as His people gather together to hear His Word preached, and to eat and drink His Word served. As the enemies of God rail and blaspheme, our interest is to make sure that we …
Strength in Meekness
Jesus taught us that when all men speak well of us, we should be greatly concerned. In a corrupted and compromised world, universal acclaim is a great danger sign. All who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, St. Paul tells us. So when we do not receive universal acclaim, …
With Older Eyes
“In Puritan poems, symbolic correspondences occur, not at the level of trope, but at the level of perception” (Daly, p. 93).
And In Their Case, Badly Told
“When postmodernists say that life is a story, they do not mean, as the Christians did, that a story can be true; they mean that truth is only a story” (Gene Edward Veith, Postmodern Times, p. 130).
All That We Need
“The sufficiency of Scripture also excludes the idea that there is any continuing revelation from the Holy Spirit given to the modern church — whether that revelation purports to come from charismatic ‘prophets,’ the holy-ghost-uh inspiring an utterance from the pastor’s wife, an impressive succession of bishops and popes, or from inner leadings, leanings, impressions, …