Don’t Let The Prosperity Preachers Steal All The Good Promises!
God’s promises are great and precious, and they are intended to give us DAILY hope
Does God promise me a suffering free life? No. But he does promise to be with me, step for step, as I walk through the Valley of Death (Ps. 23:4). He promises that I will not be burned when I walk through the fire (Is. 43:2). He promises to work and weave every circumstance together... Continue Reading
Bound and released: Can forgiveness be a one-way transaction?
Letting go of anger and hatred is important, but it takes two to make peace
The Greek word most often translated as “forgive” in the New Testament is aphiemi, which can mean to cancel or pardon, give up, leave alone, tolerate, even (in one case) divorce. The overall sense is of letting go. Charizomai, used far less frequently, has more muscle: to repair brokenness, particularly by incurring the cost. The... Continue Reading
What Does “Inspiration” Mean in 2 Timothy 3:16?
The force of what Paul is saying here is that of scripture is breathed out from God
What Paul is saying when he insists that all of the scripture has been breathed out by God, he is saying that it’s ultimate origin is in Him. It is His word. It is His speech. He is the One who is the source of these writings. And so when we talk about the doctrine... Continue Reading
9 Reasons You Can Face Anything
God’s sovereignty means the good he intends for his children will not be deterred.
Any peace and hope we have in our lives right now can be traced back to the fact that God alone is God, that he is the sovereign power behind everything. And this has future-creating wonder. God’s sovereignty, John Piper explains, is not mainly a theological problem with the past, but an invincible hope for... Continue Reading
What does a pastor do if he realizes on Sunday morning he cannot preach?
Remember, these moments are not a surprise to our God the way they are to us
You may have prepared all week, you may really want to preach, but we need moments in our life and ministry that remind us of our frailty and that we are expendable. God can use someone else besides you in this moment even if you thought all week you were the man for the task.... Continue Reading
National Partnership: A New Group in the PCA
Purpose: Seeking to preserve and advance stated principles and actions in the PCA
We would prefer the term confidential to secretive. By restricting conversations to the official role we want to instill confidence that things communicated will be understood in whole. Part of the culture of discourse everywhere (not just the PCA) includes an unwillingness to communicate dissenting views with charity. We want to do our best to... Continue Reading
Identity and Ethnicity
What happens when identity politics seep into the church (which the world’s philosophies inevitably do)?
Let me provide an example. It has become a truism among some to identify traditional Reformed worship as “western.” Its stodgy order, its music, its wordy intellectualism, its emotional restraint, are all “western.” This is stated as an accusation needing defense by traditionalists. Reformed worship is western, and so, because the church’s membership is increasingly... Continue Reading
Three Principles for Reformed (and Reforming) Worship
What we the Church do in our worship is not some invented thing, an attempt at pleasing a God who is unknowable.
The Church is a divinely ordered society with divinely ordered worship. In its local expressions it will naturally differ but scripture does not permit it to ape the culture in which it ministers (2 Cor. 6:14-18). That the Church’s teaching and worship will be foreign to those outside is inevitable. Not only is it counterproductive... Continue Reading
Lessons from the Life of Eric Liddell #3
God Can Use Anyone to Advance His Kingdom
Liddell’s life provides a tremendous challenge to those in ministry today. Some refuse to do ministry out of fear that they are not gifted enough, not trusting in the Lord. And others do ministry relying too much on their giftedness and slick presentations, also not trusting in the Lord. Both paths fail to trust in... Continue Reading
The Yuck Factor
It is becoming clear that the logic of gay marriage was set years ago and was generally accepted by the church in practice if not always in theory
So why the bust up over homosexuality when the most important things have already been made matters over which we can institutionally agree to differ? I suspect the answer is the yuck factor. Homosexuality is, or perhaps better was, revolting to a certain generation. It disgusted them in a way that polite, educated men denying... Continue Reading