Minister: Lift up your hearts! Congregation: We lift them up to the Lord! God of Resurrection Life, we praise You now in the name of our risen Lord, the Lord Jesus Christ. He is indeed the resurrection and the life, and we confess that He is life itself, whether before His crucifixion or after. We …
Joy on Holy Friday
We have come to Palm Sunday, and next Lord’s Day we will be marking the event that transformed the heavens and earth, changing them into a new heaven and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells. The triumphal entry into Jerusalem marks one of the greatest acts of faith in the history of our world. …
Chewing and Swallowing
It is not a coincidence that the fall of our race into sin involved food. God created Adam and Eve, and placed them in a garden full of food, and placed one tree in that garden off limits. They were not to eat of that one tree. All the other trees were open to them, …
Providence and Predestination
We come now to a discussion of God’s control over everything. Obviously, this includes our salvation, but is not limited to that. Now most Christians do not have a problem in acknowledging God’s control over the physical creation. Not a sparrow falls to the ground apart from the Father, and He know the numbers of …
Flat and Round
Wrongly handled, stories are as flat as any syllogism. And rightly handled, an argument (filled to the brim with propositions) can be as round and incarnational as Sam Gamgee.
Five Reasons to Oppose the Levy
On the 26th of April, 2005, the Moscow School District will present a levy to the local taxpayers here in Moscow. The levy is for six bazillions of dollars, or might as well be. And there are as many reasons for opposing the levy as there are dollars involved, but the fundamental issues are not …
Liturgy and Postmodernism
Andrew Sandlin has recently written about the liturgical resurgence in Reformed circles, and you can read his take here. I think he makes several solid points, and of course as a high church Puritan, I think he misses much of what is going on. But my point is not so much the liturgical debate, but …
And the Table Underneath
Our gracious heavenly Father, we thank You now in the name of Jesus Christ. Thank You for this food, the hands that prepared it, the fellowship around it, and the table underneath it. We give all thanks back to You, knowing that without Your Spirit, we could not live in the Sabbath rest that You …
Bread and Growth
“Often, young people are kept back from the Lord’s Supper because they are not yet spiritually strong. This is refusing to give your son bread when he asks for it–and, being too cheap to give him a stone instead, we give him air. When asked why the bread was refused, the reply is that he …
Theological Tool Words
Some are troubled by the idea of definitive justification at the beginning of our Christian lives and another eschatological “justification” at the end of history. They are right to be wary about any attempt to smuggle autonomous works into the equation, but wrong in not realizing that eternity/time transactions cannot always be tidily represented on …