Efforts to go beyond God’s Word in worship do not end well. Efforts to “improve” worship based on our feelings, preferences, pragmatics, precedent, popularity, or good intentions do not end well. The story of the high places teaches us to be content with God’s revealed will for worship, reminding us that He will never fail... Continue Reading

There is something incredibly transferable about the blessing of Psalms. The simplicity of application, the power of the imagery, the brevity of the written context – it all means you have something to share with others in conversation or with friends via text message. Psalms is a book that joins you in the most secret... Continue Reading

The fact is that in a consumeristic culture like this one—a culture in which the customer is always right—too many people leave too many churches too easily. It’s unlikely that any of us is above the temptation to depart for poor reasons and to leave behind us a trail of hurt and confusion. So before... Continue Reading

Our debt to God is jaw-dropping. Take a moment to consider just how deep God’s forgiveness is for you. What debts has God released you from? What sins have you committed against your Creator? Consider the cost of that forgiveness. Spend time reading the accounts of Christ on the cross and see the love of... Continue Reading

Our words are like water. Water is the stuff of life, but water is also incredibly destructive. Just like water, our words are incredibly powerful to either destroy, or to build up, especially to those we claim to love. When we are dealing with something that powerful, we would be very wise to be careful.... Continue Reading

When God makes a vow we have no reason to ever doubt His word. It is sure and without fail. That’s really what perseverance is all about. The deep knowledge that when the Lord has elected us before the foundation of the world to be His covenant people, He has fashioned a vessel of mercy... Continue Reading

“We always repeat, urge, and stuff people full of this topic about faith or Christian righteousness so that it would be preserved and accurately distinguished from the active righteousness of the law. (For from and in that teaching alone does the church come into and remain in existence.) Otherwise, we will not be able to... Continue Reading

Healthy churches don’t just use the gospel as a tool they have been given. They don’t think or talk about the gospel like it is merely an addition to their lives. But rather, they cling to it, with every ounce of their collective being, because they know that without it, they are both hopeless and helpless.... Continue Reading

Let us ask ourselves in the heat of our anger against injustice: Am I indignant because God’s name is not being hallowed, because His kingdom is not being valued, and because His will is not being done, or is it my own name, kingdom, and will that are being transgressed? May we have a fiery indignation for God’s law, but may... Continue Reading

People can get their tins of beans and get taught the alphabet in loads of places across the town; in very few of them will anyone tell them about the life-saving message of the gospel of Jesus Christ. That is what the church can uniquely offer. The gospel. We can help people see Jesus. We can teach... Continue Reading

This is what pro-lifers do. They usually do not make religious arguments when making their case publicly. Instead, they reason from widely-accepted moral/philosophical principles (e.g., murder should be illegal and every human being should have equal protection under the law) and scientific principles (e.g., a human being is the same kind of being from conception... Continue Reading

Jonah cared deeply for his people, Israel–YHWH understands this. It is not sin for Jonah to be patriotic. But it borders on sin to do what Jonah is doing–to understand his own national/racial identity as an Israelite to be more fundamental to who he is than his calling as YHWH’s prophet. Burning with anger, Jonah... Continue Reading

Productivity is not what you think. When you think of productivity, you think of an upper-class CEO yelling at his employees for not getting more done, threatening consequences if the report isn’t completed by Wednesday. This is tyrannical leadership, not productivity. “Stewardship” and “productivity” are interchangeable. Or, as Tim Challies put it: “Productivity is effectively... Continue Reading

Eternal life on our own merits is impossible for a people who by nature hate God and neighbor. Salvation is brought to us by a Good Samaritan who showed us mercy and promises to return for us to take us into eternal life. We demonstrate that we are right with God not in trying to justify ourselves... Continue Reading

We are always works in progress. And lest some believers take umbrage at those two things that I just said (that we are still sinners, and we must resist a theology of perfectionism), let me simply point out how the Apostle Paul looked at this matter. The longer he lived as a Christian, the more he saw himself... Continue Reading

Susanna combined Cornelia’s twelve-page confession with nine of Cornelia’s poems in a collection entitled A Short Confession of Faith. She prefaced the book with her own seven-page biography of her sister and a short poem by Susanna’s son, statesman and author Adrian Hoffer, who heartily recommended the book – the first book in Dutch authored... Continue Reading

Our salvation is one which is secured for us by the Triune God. It is the Trinity of Father, Son, and Spirit which brings about our redemption and thus it is the Trinity which we magnify in worship because of our redemption. To worship any other god that is not the Triune God of the... Continue Reading

The eugenics movement, as Chesterton predicted, became a wretched story of the negation of democratic ideals to serve a utopian vision. “Hence the tyranny has taken but a single stride to reach the secret and sacred places of personal freedom,” he wrote, “where no sane man ever dreamed of seeing it.” Wittingly or not, the... Continue Reading

Bureaucracies have an instinct for self-preservation, and DEI ideology has embedded itself in the country’s prestige institutions. But nothing is more important for the success of American innovation and self-governance than prevailing over a regime that seeks to supplant “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” with “diversity, equity, and inclusion” as the governing principle... Continue Reading

French philosopher Michel Foucault drew upon Nietzsche and Marx to build an atheistic and anti-realist view of the world. From Nietzsche, he adopted the view that power is at the center of all political discourse, and further argued that knowledge is merely a means to manipulate and exercise power. Thus, words such as “insane,” “prisoner,”... Continue Reading

Unlike our bodies, our souls do not die, or decay away. Instead they subsist after their separation from the body. This fact alone should make us careful to see to the eternal well-being of our souls. As our souls came to us as God’s free gift, so, when our souls go out of the body,... Continue Reading

Let there be no doubt: It is the corrosive effects of lockdowns and the anti-racism education regime that best explain a generation of American students who oscillate between laziness and violent activism. Kids lost out on more than a year, and sometimes multiple years, of essential socialization and time in the classroom. When they were... Continue Reading

In August 1572, thousands of Protestants assembled in Paris for the marriage of Marguerite de Valois to the Protestant Henri III of Navarre. On August 22, Gaspard de Coligny (1519–1572), prominent Huguenot nobleman and Admiral of the French navy, was shot and wounded by a pro-Guise assassin. Coligny refused to leave Paris, putting Catherine and... Continue Reading

On June 7, the school held its first-ever Pride Chapel event for its lower school, in which Grace Church Schools chaplain Rev. Mark Hummel began the service by sharing a few words on the importance of Pride. Students also learned about the history of the rainbow-colored Pride flag and sat through a reading of “Twas... Continue Reading

God is certainly bigger than we can possibly imagine.  Theologians call that bigness incomprehensibility.  What is more, the practical nature of this doctrine cannot be overestimated. The finite cannot contain the infinite means more than God’s knowledge is different from ours. It means that His wisdom and goodness are beyond us. Any time we are... Continue Reading

Christian parents have to stand in the gap for their children. Christian parents must not delegate the moral formation of their children to those who are suppressing the truth in unrighteousness, which is what so many public schools across the country are doing right now.   One of the hardest things to read today are... Continue Reading

Frequently, prudence is a matter of picking your problem. In a finite and fallen world, we will always be faced with trade-offs and difficulties. As church leaders, called to lead together in a particular locale, many of our decisions involve selecting which problems we hope to address and which problems we hope to manage over... Continue Reading

Self-reliant Christianity is a dead end. It will lead to eternal, spiritual death. However, we have a better way. All who have true union with Christ will live a life pursuing communion with him. Jesus wants us to know we are weak so we can find our strength in our communion with him.    In... Continue Reading

As Christians, let us remember that Jesus is our only hope.  On the surface of it, that statement might appear to be a little trite.  But it isn’t.  It’s true.  Jesus is our only hope.  In the conversation of life and death and sin and evil, Jesus must be the focal point.  Jesus came to... Continue Reading

Knowing the truth and having it affect you are two different things. We know that each of us is an immortal letter, ready to be read by the world. But to have this change our spiritual life and behavior, we need to rehearse it. We need to bring it before us when new experiences strike... Continue Reading