We cannot be reminded too often of the goodness and grace of God. Unbelief is the perennial temptation, and part of that unbelief is the idea that our unbelief is greater than the purposes of God. No—the legs of unbelief are too short to outrun the goodness and grace of God. We like to put …
Edible Theology, Liquid Doctrine
We sometimes divide up things that ought not to be divided. Just because we can distinguish them does not mean that they should be separated. We can distinguish height, breadth, and depth, but we cannot remove one without removing all of them. We can distinguish soul and body, but to separate them is to die. …
Proverbs and Rule
In the great work of restoration that is gospel ministry, God is preparing us for maturity. He wants us to grow up into an ability to rule. We must rule, first ourselves, and then after that the vocation that God has given to us. It must be done, all of it, under the Lordship of …
Feeding the Lambs
As we come to this Table, week after week, we know that the Lord is feeding us. And we should take note of all the different ways Scripture talks about the feeding of us. In the famous passage at the end of the gospel of John, where Jesus asks Peter three times if he loved …
A Dime-Store Ozymandias
For the last two thousand years, the Christian Church has been toppling tyrants. This started when the kings of the earth and the rulers of the former age banded together and decided that they were going to throw off the Messiah’s chains. They had Him in the grasp, and so they killed Him. But Jesus …
Dead Generals
In the second verse of the meditation, you heard the names of a number of British generals—Burgoyne, Howe, Clinton—from the time of our War for Independence, over two hundred years ago. This sounds very odd to our modern ears, for we have come to believe that worship is an vapory and “spiritual” thing. But we …
Little Grace, Great Grace
Growing in grace is like climbing a tree, as the Puritan William Bridge once observed. When you want to grow in grace, what do you do? Well, you start with the lowest branches, those which are close to the ground. This is another way of saying that you start where you are. There are doctrines …
How It Tastes
When we trust in God for our salvation, we need to be careful with what we do with that pronoun “we.” We often think that it is God’s task to save each individual soul, and then we assume that the whole operation is then handed over to the collective “us,” whether in the church, or …
Elms and Olives
We have here gathered around the Table of the Lord. As the bride of Christ, we are like a fruitful vine, growing around the sides of His house. As the children of God, we are like olive shoots, growing up around His Table. We often come here, mindful of how weak and small we are. …
Reputation or Testimony?
We have to guard ourselves against the visible sins, the high-profile sins, of course. These would be open, black-letter sins. Don’t rob banks. Don’t shoot out the street lights. Don’t engage in computer fraud. But we often find ourselves avoiding such sins, not out of a zeal for holiness, but rather because we have capitulated …