In the modern world, we have come to think of music as one thing and “the words” as quite another thing. They may complement one another, like ham and eggs, but they are also separable and distinct. We therefore have instrumental music only, and we have poetry, or lofty speech. If the poetry is high, …
And Rather Starve Than Come
One of our hymns laments the choice that many others have made with regard to the Lord’s Table. Why was I made to hear Thy voice, And enter while there’s room, When thousands make a wretched choice, And rather starve than come? The choices men make are odd, and it is even stranger that if …
Turn Us Back to our Fathers
Our Father and God, You have established Your Church as a royal priesthood in this world, and so we intercede for the nations of men now, confessing on their behalf so that the grace of Your forgiveness will soon be extended to them all. Father, we are invited to address You as Father, and on …
Wise Women Then Do Not Authorize Silly Women Now
Preaching today continues one aspect of the prophetic office, but it does so by continuing the work of weighing, discerning, evaluating, exegeting, and declaring. Preachers today are not inspired in the same way that Isaiah, Jeremiah, Agabus, or Philip’s daughters were. Because the grace of direct inspiration or utterance has been discontinued, what we now …
First Woman Pastor in the PCA?
Just to keep you posted, I have written an inquiry to a gentleman associated with MTW, the PCA’s mission arm. I wrote to ask him if there was any truth to an apparently credible report that I had heard, to the effect that an MTW church plant overseas had called a woman to be their …
Double Grace
Book 3/Chapter 11 Justification and regeneration (section 1) 1. Because Christ was given to us, what double grace have we received? 2. What is regeneration? 3. How important is justification to Calvin? The threshold (section 2) 1. Why do we need to get the concept of justification straight? 2. How do we appear in God’s …
Deee Fence
My brother Gordon is the scientist of the family (known to us as the “black sheep”), and you might be interested in a couple of recent articles he wrote for Answers magazine. Those articles are here and here.
Snippet from a Work in Process
“If someone is disposed to argue this particular point with me, they could win that argument by making a list of all the denominations that have begun to ordain women in the last generation, and show me how this was followed by an explosion of moral chastity, purity, and fidelity. Looking for flourishing chastity in …
Double Danger
Book 3/Chapter 10 Double danger (section 1) 1. What is the double danger Calvin warns against on material possessions? 2. Can this be governed by a fixed rule? The main point (section 2) 1. What must we remember in the use of all things? 2. Did that include delight and pleasure? Insensibiliity (section 3) 1. …
Ow, Ow, Ow
Pretty painful, but in an edifying kind of way.