When we come to this Table, we are often mindful of our own weakness. This is good. We are weak, and we know that we must be made strong. One of the of things God does for us to make us strong is that He feeds us. But God does not just feed us, He …
Gravel on the Ground
When we gather to worship God, we gather to hear the Word, sing the Word, eat the Word, and drink the Word. We are then given a benediction so that we might go out into the world and live the Word. We are Christians, which means that we are people of the Word. The Word …
Spirit’s Wild
We are evangelicals, but we do not want to be presumptive evangelicals. We believe in the necessity of the new birth, but we also believe in the invisibility of it. In the same passage where Jesus taught us that a man must be born again, He also taught us that we cannot capture the Spirit …
Why Did You Not Believe?
Jesus used to ask His disciples “why” questions. When they were afraid of their boat sinking, and Christ was asleep in the boat, He asked them why they were afraid (Matt. 8:26). When they were anxious about not having brought bread, He asked them why (Matt. 16:8). When Peter began to sink into the water …
Misreading Mojo
You have been exhorted many times to learn how to read the story, and especially to learn how to read the story you are in. This means that you must learn to identify (correctly) the protagonist and the antagonist. But in good literature, and in real life, this is not a matter of looking at …
Gospel Begins With Promises
When the Lord Jesus preached His famous sermon, the Sermon on the Mount, He began with the Beatitudes. Too many people read these as though they were a set of impossible hurdles. But Jesus was beginning His message as God loves to begin all His gospel work—with promises. We are told in Scripture that the …
Invincible Grace
Eating in the presence of God is a glorious privilege. Drinking in the presence of God is a glorious privilege. But God is not just present with us in the person of Christ at this Table. He is also present around this Table, in the hearts of all His saints, and He is present in …
On Not Getting Weird
As God continues to bless us as a community, one of the things we will notice is that the blessings of God are as uneven here as they are anywhere else. We want to live out the ramifications of koinonia fellowship, so that the one who has little does not have too little. One of …
Intelligibility is Not Cozy
Yesterday at Knox Presbytery (CREC), we had a good discussion surrounding the issues of “seeker sensitive” worship and “seeker sensible” worship, a discussion that flowed into the evening. Here are just a couple of quick comments about it. First, my operating assumption is that the worship service on Sunday morning should be structured for believers, …
Weak Faith Staggers Under Promises
God promises to meet us here in this meal, enabling us to partake of the Lord Jesus Christ by faith. Note that we chew and swallow by faith, and the blessing that comes to us is in accordance with our faith. Grace comes to us through means, means like bread and wine, but the catalytic …