INTRODUCTION:The fact that God is a perfect Father is a two-edged sword, and we must take care that we not emphasize just one of them—lest we damage our souls . . . and our families. God is a perfect Father, and we are fallen creatures. This means that God is a perfect Father as an …
Fatherhood and Pleasure
INTRODUCTION:Our world is filled with fathers because it is a world created by God the Father. Fatherhood lies at the center of all things, and because the Father created the world, the world has to reflect that reality. But because it is a world that has—because of the disobedience of our first father—fallen into sin …
The State of the Church 2012
INTRODUCTION:Our duties toward God and man are concrete duties. All of our duties are attached to names, and faces, and places. We have no duties in isolation; all duties occur in the context of relationships. But in order to love as we ought in each particular instance of a relationship we need to understand how …
The Gospel and Thanksgiving
INTRODUCTION:The gospel is good news for everyone, and this includes all those who have already heard and believed it. The gospel is food, not just information, and so when the gospel is declared rightly it creates and reinforces true faith. The gospel does not unsettle true faith. You are a congregation of God’s people, a …
Siloam Means Sent
This last weekend Nancy and I had the privilege of visiting the saints at Riverwood Presbyterian in Tuscaloosa. We were shown wonderful hospitality there, and were greatly encouraged by the trip. During one part of the visit we toured the area demolished by the tornado this last spring (and the picture below represents a miniscule …
Pentecostal Authority
INTRODUCTION: The Jewish festival of Pentecost is now famously connected to the sign gifts that were poured out on this day—gifts of tongues, and prophecy, and the like. We get the denominational name of Pentecostal from this day, and so one of the things we should learn as we mark this day is how that …
Parish Life
INTRODUCTION:Over the years, we have seen many believers move here to the Palouse, and we have been greatly blessed by this. The reasons have obviously varied, but in countless conversations I have been a part of, the word that comes up over and over and over again is the word community. There is a reason …
Parenting Young People II
INTRODUCTION:The hardest thing to maintain in this unbalanced world is balance. We react, we pull away, we lurch, and we tumble. We do this in many ways. And, having heard the exhortation that we should teach our children to love the standard and, if they don’t, to lower the standard, what temptation will confront us? …
Clean Contentment
INTRODUCTION: One of the running temptations we encounter in this world is the temptation to come up with makeshift forms of holiness. We think we know what God wants, and we bustle around to come up with some form of that on our own. But then we discover later, to our dismay, that this is …
Parenting Young People I
INTRODUCTION:When it comes to parenting, you have often heard me say that our parental responsibility does not consist in getting young people to grit their teeth and conform to the standard. The task before us is to bring up our children in such a way as to love the standard. This is not possible to …