This week and next we are going to be talking a good deal about money, and there is no subject on which Americans deceive themselves more easily than this one. We careen between two extremes. The first is to plunge headlong into the cascading waterfall of material goods that our economy produces, whooping and hollering …
Liturgicide
For those who want to do it, one of the best devices for hiding from God is something called liturgy. I say this as one advocating liturgical reform in the Church, and as one who has taught repeatedly that liturgy is inescapable. But developed liturgy, researched liturgy, biblical liturgy, remains a snare. A certain kind …
Avoiding the Precipice
The law of the Lord is perfect, the psalmist says, converting the soul. For the one who receives the word of God in faith, the law teaches us to stay away from the precipice of sin, apostasy, and damnation. The law of God makes the simple wise. Hear then, this warning from the law. The …
Mutual Indwelling
Jesus explicitly prays for His followers to be one, just as He and the Father are one. This is the basis for the likemindedness that we find frequently commended in the pages of the New Testament. But too often we just glide over this, thinking that the unity we are to have is a mere …
Middle-Aged Congregations
By the grace of God, our church has grown significantly over the years. Also by the grace of God, our church has actually survived through these years. We are now facing the temptations and obstacles that churches our size and our age have always faced. When we were young and small, and no one had …
Prayers and Exhortation
Many of you have heard that there was a sniper shooting late last night and early this morning at the Presbyterian Church here in Moscow. We don’t know many details, but our thoughts and prayers are of course with the victims, and with their families. We also pray for the congregation at the Presbyterian Church, …
Even a Child
“At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16: 11) Growing Dominion, Part 116 “Even a child is known by his doings, whether his work be pure, and whether it be right” (Prov. 20:11). A work ethic is instilled, or not, when an individual is a child. And in order for parents to …
Grace and the Three Gs
Martin Luther once observed that young men are tempted by girls. When they are thirty, they are tempted by gold. When they are forty, they are lured and enticed by glory and honor. And when they are sixty, they think, “What a pious fellow I have become!” We too readily confuse the natural waning of …
Really Catty
The kingdom of God is not a way of being good in the first place. It is a way of forgiveness, which means that other things, far less respectable, have to be addressed first. Once there was a young girl in junior high school who approached her mother one night about a problem she had …
The Kingdom of God is a Fine Automobile
The doctrine of the kingdom of God is like a fine automobile. Some parts of it are lush, and polished, and comfortable, with climate control, and windows that go up and down with the press of a button. Other parts of it are cold and metallic, greasy, heavy and far too . . . doctrinal. …