The efficacy of worship goes far beyond the intentions of the worshippers. It is fitting and proper that all worshippers of the triune God fix this in their minds. We are worshipping God in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. We are doing so in faith, and are offering up a right worship of …
Sola Fide
We know that we are saved by grace, through faith, so that no one can boast. We know also that we are saved by faith alone, sola fide. But we must take care. What kind of faith can be trusted to go out alone? Whenever we make theological distinctions, we have to be careful not …
We Think We Know What We Have Often Heard
We think we know what we have often heard. We tend to think we have progressed past what has frequently been said within our hearing. And yet, this is how the cancer of self-deception works. James tells us that those who hear without doing are self-deceived. And the more they hear, the more they think …
God Rest Ye Merry
We are now entering the season of Advent. And just as St. Paul told the Corinthians to observe the festival of Passover—which they did coming to the Lord’s Supper—by getting rid of the yeast of malice and wickedness, so you should take care to observe Christmas in the same fashion. This is the season of …
Just Plain Grateful
We have just finished celebrating Thanksgiving, and we are on the threshold of Advent. Every worship service, every Lord’s Day, culminates in our celebration of the Eucharist, which is the table of Thanksgiving. In contrast, those who rebel against God in the first chapter of Romans are described as having two signature positions—their refusal to …
Telling the Whole Christmas Story
As we continue to celebrate Advent, a central part of our task is to avoid the common idols of this time of year, and sentimentalism is chief among them. The Christmas story is told in Scripture in some detail, and as we celebrate this story, some of our lapses into idolatry can be identified by …
Common Era, Humbug!
N.B. This is an old exhortation. It is not really Advent yet. Nor is it 2002. But I stand by everything else. This is the second Sunday of the Advent season. As Christians, we seek to live our lives before God moment by moment and day by day. Unfortunately, we tend to taper off after …
What Pagans Always Do
Christians have been living in exile for far too many years. This exile is the exile of an arbitrary dualism, one that separates our private faith and the public faith. This is the heresy of modernity, and the political expression of that heresy is the ideal of liberal democracy. According to this heresy, what you …
Deep Comfort
When we gather together like this, under such circumstances, it is easy to fall into one of two errors, both of them serious sins. The first is the sin of complacency. We have heard about grace so much, and paid so little attention to what was actually being said about it, that we take the …
Grievances In Perspective
Disagreements are healthy only because they give us opportunity to obey the Scriptures as we strive together for like-mindedness. But some have taken the fact that disagreement is healthy in this limited sense, and twisted it into disobedience. They believe that we are supposed to strive for disagreements, because they are healthy. But the Scriptures …