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, …
Cathartic Sin
“If our translation is correct, Job is describing in this passage the beneficial effect of his unjust persecution on his own community. I know of no other text where that effect is so bluntly articulated (17:6-9). It is the same as the tragic effect, the Aristotelian catharsis, but this is not a theatrical representation, and …
No, No. The Good Kind of Lynching.
Scott Clark has called the treatment that Steve Wilkins is getting an ecclesiastical lynching. But before you start scratching your head over this puzzlement, he does say this like its a good thing. HT. Mark Horne Land of Goshen! if I may exclaim here with more than my usual vehemence. Or looking at it from …
How Near Is Forgiveness?
Meals talk. They say something. Of course, it does not follow from this that we always listen as we ought. The Word that accompanies this sacrament is not a matter of us talking over the meal, providing some sort of sound track for it. Rather, when we speak here, it is really a matter of …