Our Father, and great God, we rejoice before You now. Thank You for the work You have blessed us with in the course of the last week, including today, and for the work that You will bless us with in the week to come. We thank You that in the new covenant our labors are …
Polemical Voltage
One of the staples of NPP discussion with regard to Second Temple Judaism is that, contrary to the OPP, the first-century Jews were not merit-legalists, but that rather they adhered to a religion of grace. In the set-up of the problem, according to many NPP advocates, we are not told that the first century Jews …
Ezra Nehemiah 2
Introduction: The world is a messy place. Part of the mess for believers is learning to tell the difference between situations that call for martyrdom and situations that call for godly acquiescence. One of the more common set-ups where such wisdom is required is when pagan empires are in control. To what extent are we …
The Issue Is Boasting
I freely and cheerfully grant that the Jews of the first century did not hold the peculiar merit theology that prevailed during the medieval era. But that particular merit theology is only one of countless ways that fallen men have devised to boast in themselves instead of in the Lord. And the problem of this …
Forsaking the Right Thing
As we celebrate the Lord’s Supper every week, take note that every exhortation, every confession, every charge is to be heard in this context, and this is how we are to fence the Table. If you are a baptized believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you are not under the lawful discipline of His …
Receiving and Retaining
In his article on justification in the New Dictionary of Theology, N.T. Wright says a number of good and indisputable things. The dictionary was edited by David Wright, J.I. Packer, and Sinclair Ferguson, so we know that the Reformed bona fides should be in good order here. And I thought the article was quite good, …
An Edible Worldview
We are all familiar with the word worldview. It is a commonplace among us, and in danger of becoming a buzzword. The Reformed usually mean that a Christian worldview is something like having a biblically-based intellectual framework. This is part of it, but it is only a part. A worldview is characterized by four basic …
The Whore Becomes a Virgin Bride
The last person we are considering in this series of Bible stories is unique. The others we have treated primarily as individuals. We will do this with Mary Magdalene as well, but we will also spend a good amount of time considering her typological significance. So we will treat Mary, but we will also be …
Bread, Not Crumbs
As you worship God, keep in mind that He is kind to us, and He teaches us. But also keep in mind that we have much to learn. The disintegrating condition of the contemporary church around us, and the fact that we see it, should not make us proud, but rather should make us fear. …
Ezra Nehemiah 1
Introduction We have before the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, which were probably one book originally. Moreover, it is quite possible that Chronicles/Ezra/Nehemiah was original one book. As we work through this together, it would obviously be helpful for you not only to read through these books, but also through the book of Esther, as …