Minister: Lift up your hearts! Congregation: We lift them up to the Lord! Oh God, my Lord and God, I seek You early in the morning. My soul thirsts for You, My body longs for You In a dry and thirsty land, Where there is no water. I long to see Your power and glory, …
Why the World Limps
The world used to be a pleasant place. Occasionally trouble would arise—a plague, or a disaster, or an invasion. But men instinctively knew how to deal with all such events—they would find the one responsible, whether he was responsible or not, take him outside the city limits, and stone him there. The pile of stones …
Our Communion Parable
Father and Lord, we come to You in the name of the Lord Jesus, and ask You to hear our prayer. We are thankful for our food, for the wine, for another Sabbath, and for the opportunity to worship You tomorrow together with all Your people. We thank You for the communion of saints, and …
Merit Isn’t One of Those Words
The next chapter in Covenant, Justification, and Pastoral Ministry is entitled “The Covenant Before the Covenants,” and is written by Scott Clark and David VanDrunen. In the course of reviewing it, I intend to quote Ambrose Bierce not once, but twice. The first citation is of a more general nature. The topic of this chapter …
The Metaphorical Bonnet
The exhortation last Lord’s Day spoke to austere fathers. Today I want to address women who tear down their households with their own hands, and with their own tongues. Scripture has a great deal to say to us in our particular stations and callings. Men are addressed one way, and women another. In a community …
Your Temper is a Doctrine of God
As we come to worship the Lord this morning, I want to deliver a particular exhortation to a particular part of our congregation. I want to speak to fathers about the dangers of austerity. Austere fathers are often attracted to certain elements of the Reformed faith, and by emphasizing that faith partially, they often stumble …
Westminster XXXIII: Of the Last Judgment
1. God hath appointed a day, wherein He will judge the world, in righteousness, by Jesus Christ (Acts 17:31), to whom all power and judgment is given of the Father (John 5:22, 27). In which day, not only the apostate angels shall be judged (1 Cor. 6:3; Jude 6; 2 Pet. 2:4), but likewise all …
Preaching to No One in Particular
Ministers and preachers have a dangerous tendency to emphasize timeless truths to such an extent that they wind up preaching to no one in particular. And yet the letters to the Ephesians, Galatians, Corinthians and Romans are quite different — this is because their respectively different stories require that that God’s eternal Word be brought …
Uphill From Here
I thoroughly enjoyed the next chapter in Covenant, Justification, and Pastoral Ministry. This was the chapter by S.M. Baugh, and was entitled “The New Perspective, Mediation, and Justification.” In it he tackled the central confusion of E.P. Sanders, along with some of the resultant muddles, and does an effective job with it. One particular thing …
A Regular Gun Show
The next essay in Covenant, Justification, and Pastoral Ministry is by Bryan Estelle, and is entitled “The Covenant of Works in Moses and Paul.” Estelle is plainly acquainted with a vast amount of theological and biblical studies literature, and his close handling of that literature is obviously competent. If footnotes were biceps, this thing would …