When Herod issued the order for the boys in the vicinity of Bethlehem to be killed, he was not just being murderous personally. There was a corporate, covenantal statement being made as well, which was that Israel had become Egypt, and the tetrarch over the Jews had become a Pharaoh. Pharaoh had murdered the children …
Christ the Lord of the Covenant
The Word of God teaches us how we are to understand the relationship between the Old and New Testament, which relates to the relationship between the Jews and Gentiles. If we let go of certain preconceived ideas, that relationship is not difficult to grasp. “For if the first fruit be holy, the lump is also …
Dirtymoney
Peter tells us that ministers ought not to be motivated by aischrokerdos, by filthy lucre (1 Pet. 5:2). A related term (aischrokerdes) is proscribed for ministers in 1 Tim. 3:3,8 and Titus 1:7 (cf. Tit. 1:11). It is one word, which, if we did it this way, would come out like dirtymoney. Now what is …
Not Taxing Their Patience
“In order to maintain attention, avoid being too long. An old preacher used to say to a young man who preached an hour, — ‘My dear friend, I do not care what else you preach about, but I wish you would always preach about forty minutes.’ We ought seldom to go much beyond that — …
An American Variation on the Myth
“Americans have not moved beyond mythical consciousness. Moreover the form of the classical monomyth, with its symbolic call for lifetime service to a community’s institutions, allows us to highlight its absence in the distinctive pattern of what we call here the American monomyth. Although there are significant variations, the following archetypical plot formula may be …
Some Protestantism as Arch-Romanism
“The holy community which Calvin sought to set up in Geneva represents in some ways a completer integration of Christianity with civilization than anything Europe had yet seen. It is true that there emerges within Calvinism, especially in its later Puritan developments, a more negative attitude toward the cultural amenities than had been present in …
War That Aims for Peace
“I will never meddle with any strife but that which shall have peace to be the end of it. No war is good upon any terms, taken up upon the justest ground, unless it aims at peace. That soldier is a murderer who sheds blood not in reference to peace. The swords and ensigns of …
Restitution: The Forgotten Duty
This last Lord’s Day, I preached on the forgotten duty of restitution. You can take a listen here. “Forgiveness of sin is forgiveness of sin, not redefinition of sin (Rom. 13:8-10). ‘Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven’ contains a glorious truth. But, misapplied as it frequently is, it also represents a travesty of biblical living.”
Christ the Lord of Redemption
The gospel is not fragile. In it, the wisdom of God in Christ overthrows kingdoms, powers, principalities, egos, and various cherished doctrines. “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. …
Self-Condemned
The word hairetikos, heretic, is obviously related to our discussion of the word hairesis, or heresy. It is only used once in the New Testament, in Titus 3:10. In that place, we are told that a man who is a heretic should be rejected after two admonitions or warnings. The natural question is whether the …