So what can we learn about our controversy over illegal immigration from what the Bible tells us about the gift of tongues? Obvious question, right? “Brethren, be not children in understanding: howbeit in malice be ye children, but in understanding be men. In the law it is written, With men of other tongues and other …
An Important Distinction
Scripture throughout makes a sharp distinction between personal loyalty to God and simple prioritization of the institutional church. When things are ordered rightly, this distinction is not a separation, but it remains a distinction. Here is a striking example. Jesus sharply rebukes those who prioritize the needs of the temple over the responsibilities to family. …
A Reminder
Love in Trifles
All communities experience friction, and wise communities develop manners and customs designed to minimize that friction. It has been well said that manners should be defined as “love in trifles.” But there is a trap to be avoided at the very beginning. When someone blunders in the manners department, through ignorance or thoughtlessness, those who …
Everlasting Waybread
When cultural observers fret over the disintegration of once-intact families in our culture, one of the things they point to is how often people eat their meals separately, or eat them in haste, having breakfast over the sink. This concern is well-grounded—there is something to it. We should focus on table fellowship, both here and …
Deep Ethos
“Unless we would degrade preaching to a mere elocutionary art, we must never forget that the soil out of which powerful preaching grows is the preacher’s own life. This is what makes the art of preaching different from all other arts of communication” (Martin, What’s Wrong With Preaching Today? p. 5).
Exegete the Right Source
“The text, then, will not be tortured to teach a doctrine contrary to the general teachings of inspiration, and it will be something more than a motto for a series of observations drawn from a merely human source, the preacher’s own mind” (Shedd, Homiletics and Pastoral Theology, p. 160).
Surveying the Text: 2 Thessalonians
Introduction The second epistle to the Thessalonians was likely written shortly after the first one, in that it was addressing many of the same sorts of issues. This beleaguered church was faced with hostility, was affected by apocalyptic excitement, and also needed to deal with some of her members that were responding to this kind …
Remembrance and Anticipation
One of the standard ways we can bother one another in community is by not picking up after ourselves. We do something messy, move on, leaving a legacy behind us. This is why your roommate has to deal with your breakfast dishes. This is why other members of the family have to clear a place …
Corporate Sanctification
There are two import things we have to remember about this meal, and if we do, we will better understanding the place of this memorial in the history of the church. The first thing is that this is the Lord’s Supper, not our own. The meal belongs to Him. He instituted it, and He sits …