Introduction When a man leaves his father and mother, and takes a wife, one of the purposes God had for this was the creation and nurture of godly seed. As we mentioned when we considered this, it is one purpose of the marriage union, but it is not the only one. We come now to …
Express Warrant for Paedobaptism
With regard to the baptism of infants, I no longer accept the requirement for “express warrant” that I used to hold to when I was baptistic in my convictions. The “express warrant” hermeneutic winds up prohibiting way too much — worship on the Lord’s Day, women taking communion, and so on. At the same time, …
Marriage As Manifest Glory XXXVI
INTRODUCTION: So we are now considering the question of respect, submission and authority. We have looked at love, sacrifice and authority with regard to husbands, and now we need to reflect on the other side of the coin. Remember that authority in the Christian framework is a Trinitarian thing. Authority gladly surrendered is the foundation …
Idleness and Gossip
Everyone knows that one of the sins of the tongue is gossip, but we are sometimes vague about what actually constitutes the sin. Gossip is not a sin that consists of simply passing on information. Saying something like, “Did you hear that Susan is engaged now?” is not gossip. Gossip is the sin of passing …
Better Off?
“Perhaps we should just limit this question to children in the wombs of black women today. If you were a black fetus in Atlanta, Georgia, what were you odds of ever seeing the light of day in 1858? What are your odds in 2005? A lot of kids died back then, but not because the …
Sinclair Ferguson Returns
My wife and I drove over to Wenatchee yesterday and had a great time with the saints at Trinity Church (CREC) there. I still had Sinclair Ferguson’s tape in the tape deck, and my wife hadn’t heard it, and so on the way back we listened to it again. And hence some more comments. It …
The Poet Warrior
The story of redemption is not just a story about forgiveness being bestowed upon us in some heavenly transaction. It includes that, of course, but we must never forget how this salvation unfolds in the greatest story that any man ever told. And that story includes the slaying of dragons, the fall of ancient civilizations, …
Moses the Christian
God had told Abraham that his descendants would spend four hundred years in another nation. This particular exile began in the days of Abraham’s grandson, Jacob, and his great-grandson, Joseph. The children of Israel went down to Egypt 70 strong, and they emerged from that land 400 years later, an enormous multitude. But the various …
Marriage As Manifest Glory XXXIII
INTRODUCTION: As we have noted, men as husbands can fail in their calling to be masculine in various ways. But men and women are a fallen race together, and women also stumble in their calling to be feminine. Remembering that folly is a moral category in the Bible, we need to deal with the fact …
From Abram to Abraham
After the Flood, the sons of men attempted to recreate the civilizational glory that had existed before the Flood. We have to remember that we should not look at ancient civilization through the lens of evolution—men gradually striving to progress. Rather, we have learned the story of a great Fall, in which man was created …