The exposition of each of the ten commandments has now been concluded. Once the terms are established and made clear, the covenant is made (Dt. 27-30). One of the great features of covenants, the blessings and curses, is now set plainly before the people. The blessings and curses are mountains on either side of the …
Deacons and the Woman (1 Tim. 3:8-13)
INTRODUCTION: The apostle Paul then turns to the office of deacon, which is, in many ways, a mysterious office. We are given the qualifications for the office here, but an explicit job description is never given to us. We have some idea from the fact that the synagogue had a deacon, called a chazan, and …
Let Us Feed Cheesecake to our Horses
The famous story tells of the minister who wrote in the margin of his notes, “Argument weak. Shout here.” Whenever anyone is unalterably attached to a position, and that position is wrong, there is always a strong temptation to shout. Moreover, the sillier a position gets, the more shouting is required to keep people from …
Does Your Marriage Need Help?
This is pretty funny, and outlandish, but I bet that any pastor or marriage counselor has a comparable story from real life. So consider this a plug for the 4th Annual Conference on the Family hosted by Providence Church (CREC) in Lynchburg, VA. The date is June 16, 2007. Nancy and I will be speaking …
Testimony on the MARS Testimony
The official testimony of the Mid-America Reformed Seminary has a digest of errors. I stated in an earlier post that I could join with them in rejecting about 43 of their list of 45. But the reasons for this vary. In some cases, it was because I agreed with them in rejecting the errors of …
Right Pretty
It may not seem relevant right now, but Abigail was a beautiful and intelligent woman. Christians are good at fighting relativism when it comes to matters of truth. Those who reject a fixed standard of truth are soon engaged in debate by capable Christian apologists. Believers also do well when the subject at hand is …
The Glory of Modesty (1 Timothy 2:8-15)
INTRODUCTION: We come now to a passage that has suffered much at the hands of expositors. I have no desire to take my turn at this, but the reason the passage has suffered is not because it is one of those parts of the apostle Paul’s writing that is hard to understand. The passage has …
Stalin Has No God, Including Hitchens
I need to check and see if Congress declared this National Hitchens Week or something. His next chapter in God is Not Great asks the question: “Does Religion Make People Behave Better?” We have noted before that the question is framed improperly. It is like asking “Does Anything Going By the Name of Medical Treatment …
On Mulberry Street
In the first place, I think there must have been an editorial mishap in the assigned title of Hitchens’ next chapter. It was “The Tawdriness of the Miraculous and the Decline of Hell.” The chapter is about the former, and not about the latter at all. I can only conjecture that it was at one …
A Woman’s Only Real Friend in this World
We now finish the Mosaic exposition of the seventh commandment. But as we do, there are several things which we must keep in mind about the nature of sovereign grace. The first is that it is sovereign. The second is that it is grace. He that is wounded in the stones, or hath his privy …