Introduction: As a congregation we have grown a great deal over the years. We are very grateful for what God has given us, and we are even more grateful for what He has taken away from us. By faith, we trust that as the years go by, we will grow our roots even deeper into …
Worship As a Daily Office
Minister: Lift up your hearts! Congregation: We lift them up to the Lord! Hear my cry, O God; Attend to my prayer. From the ends of the earth, My voice goes out to You. When my heart is overwhelmed, Lead me O God, Lead me to the rock that is higher than I. You have …
What Pagans Always Do
Christians have been living in exile for far too many years. This exile is the exile of an arbitrary dualism, one that separates our private faith and the public faith. This is the heresy of modernity, and the political expression of that heresy is the ideal of liberal democracy. According to this heresy, what you …
Speaking Mush to Power
Here is an interesting and valuable article on American Empire, N.T. Wright, the emergent church, and Pauline studies (HT: Justin Taylor). And here are just a couple of random (and brief) observations on the same general subject. I am not going to argue for these; I am just going to say them. 1. It is …
Show Us the Covenant
Our Father and God, You are the God who has promised to show us the covenant. We thank You that we are in the covenant, but we seek more than this—we ask that You would show us the covenant, in accordance with all Your promises. We sit down at this meal, ready to thank You …
Obedience or Death
Recall that chapter eight of Deuteronomy is structured chiastically. We will now consider the second half of this chiasm. “Beware that thou forget not the Lord thy God, in not keeping his commandments, and his judgments, and his statutes, which I command thee this day” (Deuteronomy 8:11-20). Remember the central point of this chapter is …
Westminster XXIV: Of Marriage and Divorce
1. Marriage is to be between one man and one woman: neither is it lawful for any man to have more than one wife, nor for any woman to have more than one husband, at the same time (Gen. 2:24; Matt. 19:5–6; Prov. 2:17). One man, one woman, one time. Polygamy is excluded because it …
Westminster XXIII: Of the Civil Magistrate
1. God, the supreme Lord and King of all the world, hath ordained civil magistrates, to be, under Him, over the people, for His own glory, and the public good: and, to this end, hath armed them with the power of the sword, for the defense and encouragement of them that are good, and for …
Deep Comfort
When we gather together like this, under such circumstances, it is easy to fall into one of two errors, both of them serious sins. The first is the sin of complacency. We have heard about grace so much, and paid so little attention to what was actually being said about it, that we take the …
Grievances In Perspective
Disagreements are healthy only because they give us opportunity to obey the Scriptures as we strive together for like-mindedness. But some have taken the fact that disagreement is healthy in this limited sense, and twisted it into disobedience. They believe that we are supposed to strive for disagreements, because they are healthy. But the Scriptures …