You are accustomed to hear two words paired, and those words are Word and sacrament. The two do go together, and are not in the slightest degree at odds with one another. But in the minds of some, they are at odds, and sides are chosen. Some choose a rationalistic service, where the Word is …
Fathers Leading In Worship
Fathers, the word of exhortation is directed at you this morning. You have gathered your families, and you have brought them here to worship in the presence of the Lord. The exhortation here is that it is not enough to do this physically. The apostle Paul told the Thessalonians that he had behaved toward them …
911 Stumpers Both Ways
If you haven’t already checked them out, here are some places where you can go to satisfy whatever itch it is that web sites like this satisfy. Debunking the “inside job” take would be the task of the folks here, here, and here. Oh, and another one here. And here. And some sites that question …
Yeah
“If television has no impact, then why would the bisexual writer care how homosexuals are portrayed?” (Robert Knight, The Age of Consent, p. 63.).
The Mind Must Close On Something
“Education is not mere ‘data transfer.’ We are not moving around ones and zeros. The student must think . . . The receiving mind is not a bucket into which the teacher drops things” (The Case for Classical Christian Education, p. 192).
Staying Power
“What is distinctive about the contest between myth and gospel, therefore, is that myth is fragile and survives only when its premises are accepted uncritically, while the gospel can be trashed and betrayed and corrupted almost beyond recognition without fatally compromising its inherent demythologizing power. Time and again, the gospel has been turned into a …
A Fourth Decade of Psalms/Psalm 40
Introduction: While all the psalms are messianic, this is a great and glorious messianic psalm. The New Testament plainly declares it to have been fulfilled in Christ, and, given this, we learn a great deal about what Jesus came to accomplish. The Text: “I waited patiently for the Lord; and he inclined unto me, and …
I Have Not Hid Your Righteousness
Minister: Lift up your hearts! Congregation: We lift them up to the Lord! I waited patiently for God; He stooped and heard my cry. He lifted me from a horrible pit; He lifted me from miry clay, He put my feet on His own rock, And set my feet in His own path. A glorious …
Always Bright and Shiny
We wrestle not against flesh and blood, St. Paul tells us, but rather against principalities and powers. These principalities have an embodiment and manifestation in the worldly power structures that surround us, and it is therefore a central responsibility of ours to assemble in worship of the triune God. This is because worship of Almighty …
Gracious Eating and Drinking
The Lord’s Supper is made up of participles—eating and drinking. The Lord’s Supper is not made up of material elements—bread and wine. The bread and wine are a necessary part of it, certainly, but the partaking of Christ happens in the action, motivated by evangelical faith. But the common life, the koinonia, the partaking together, …