Technology is a gift and blessing from God and, as such, it is a form of wealth. We are not permitted to think that wealth is sinful in and of itself, but we are required to remember at all times that it presents to us a peculiar set of temptations. Because the Bible doesn’t mention …
Stay at Your Post
When a nation offends God, the Bible teaches that He marches through the land in indignation. Blessings and disasters are a function of providence, and not a function of a random event dispenser in the sky. And the response to any and every event is always to be the same—repentance and faith. Now repentance and …
Just Bread and Wine
This is a humble meal, offered to us by God through the humble obedience of Jesus Christ, even to the point of death on a cross. This meal came from humility, and proceeds to humility. The elements are humble—simple bread and wine. It is a plain meal, not one calculated to make us think of …
Plain Distinctions and High Theology
Clear thinking is a virtue, and murky thinking is a sin. Muddy confusion is one of the characteristic sins of our unhappy age. Now some with a pretense to clear thinking draw sharp and crisp lines in all the wrong places, and that folly is then pointed to by advocates of fuzzy thinking as a …
Prove It
In the Old Testament law, because of man’s hardness of heart, it was possible for a man to put away his wife for trivial reasons. When men and women become bitter, every trivial thing rises to intolerable proportions, and the thing cannot be resolved. But when a woman was put away by a man for …
A Thousands Lives of Sin
In our confusion, we tend to use the greatness of our sin as an argument against receiving the mercy of God. But that is not how the Bible reasons. Isaiah says that though our sins are as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. And David prays this way — “pardon my iniquity, for …
A New Set of Ancestors
One of the most maligned words in the Bible is “begat.” This is because we stumble over the long lists of them, not recognizing their importance. But to understand this word is to understand the nature of our salvation. James says “of his own will begat he us” — we were begotten into salvation. Regeneration, …
A Star in a Black Sky
We are evangelical Christians, which means a number of things. First, we profess our faith in the evangel, the Greek word for gospel, or good news. This is in evidence every week when we declare the good news summarized in the Apostles’ Creed. Second, we hold that in order for a man to be saved, …
So Come, and Welcome, to Jesus Christ
I want to explain something that I usually say at the conclusion of these little exhortations, and that is, “Come, and welcome, to Jesus Christ.” What do I mean by that? First, the Scriptures teach us that when we partake of the bread and wine we are partakers of the Table of the Lord Jesus …
A Music Minister With Little Cymbals Between His Knees
My post on Mozart and Vince Gill got a friendly rejoinder from Scott Cline, and that rejoinder can be found here. I have a few things to say in response, but not a ton, because I think in some places we are arguing the same (basic) point with different vocabulary. But we shall see. Scott …