High Places
The story of high places in Israel reminds us of the importance of worshiping God only as He has directed in His Word.
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
Walking Through the Psalms
Simplicity in Psalm study is sometimes where we find the treasure.
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
Before You Pack Up and Leave…
What should you do when you find yourself eager to slip out of one church and into another?
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
How to Forgive
Jesus unhesitatingly does demand that we forgive.
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
3 Reasons to be Careful of What You Say Today
Words Reflect Our Hearts
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
Getting to the End
Finding Faith in the Eternal Promises of God
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
“The Most Difficult Thing of All”: Luther on Justification and Passive Righteousness
There is nothing more difficult than assenting to passive, rather than active, righteousness (that is, the righteousness of Christ rather than of ourselves) in relating to God.
“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
The Centrality of the Gospel
To be unified in the gospel, you must begin by getting the gospel right.
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
Hot Indignation Seizes Me | Psalm 119:53
A society without any friction whatsoever is as useful (and as dangerous) as a bunch of dull knives.
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
If You Don’t Give Them Jesus Then What’s the Point?
Churches are there to proclaim the excellencies of God’s glory. We are there to make much of Jesus, to point people to him and encourage his people on in him.
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
Yes, Intrinsic Human Value Is a Christian Idea, but Do You Really Want to Argue Against It?
The scientific truth is that the unborn is a living, growing, developing, very young human being. Abortion intentionally kills that human being.
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 — Preacher of Repentance (7) — Angry With God, Again . . .
Jonah’s Self-Pity Comes to an End
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
CPM: The Christian Productivity Movement
There is a resurgence of Christians seeking to understand work, productivity, habits, and time management from a biblical worldview.
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
The Greater Lesson of the Parable of the Good Samaritan
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.
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 Merely Jars of Clay
We all have a long way to go in our Christian journey.
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 and Cornelia Teelinck – Inspiring Courage and Faith During the Dutch Reformation
Susanna described Cornelia as one whose “greatest, or rather only joy and desire was to speak of Godly affairs, to exalt God’s omnipotence, his goodness, his wisdom, his prudence, and above all his heartfelt love for humanity..."
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
Romans 8: Brimming with Glory
Paul explicitly states that the Holy Spirit is both the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ.
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
One Hundred Years Ago, “Following the Science” Meant Supporting Eugenics
Chesterton was one of the first to see it coming: when the machinery of the state would invoke the authority of science to deprive individuals — both the “unfit” and the unborn — of their fundamental human rights.
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
The DEI Regime
Every Fortune 100 company has now adopted “diversity, equity, and inclusion” programming.
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
Footnotes to Lucifer: The 7 Most Destructive Philosophers in Western History
The list suffices to remind us that Lucifer’s antithetical word holds sway in many of the ideologies and movements that continue to degrade the Western mind.
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
What Happens When You Die?
Alexander Nisbet sets out the ancient wisdom of Ecclesiastes in the following updated extract.
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
Today’s Kids Despise Authority Thanks to a Disastrous Duo: Lockdowns And CRT
The corrosive effects of lockdowns and the anti-racism education regime best explain a generation of students who challenge authority.
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
Marie Durand — Part 3: The Indelible Legacy of the 1572 Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre
The Fourth Religious War erupted from the Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, which commenced on August 24, 1572. This tragedy needs special mention because of the deep mark it left on both the Huguenot psyche and Catholic-Protestant relations for many generations.
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
Students At Ritzy NYC High School Forced To Attend Drag Show In Church: Report
Students at a ritzy Manhattan private school were reportedly forced to attend a drag show at church as part of its LGBTQ+ pride celebrations.
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 Incomprehensible
The doctrine of incomprehensibility reminds us to let God be God.
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
Parents, Don’t Be Gaslighted by Biased News Reports
It is an open attempt to stigmatize Christians for opposing a public school curriculum that indoctrinates children to affirm sexual immorality and gender confusion.
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
The Prudence Bucket
Applying the Bible to Gray Areas
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
Jesus Wants You to Know You are Weak
He wants us to see that weakness is a prerequisite for true spiritual growth.
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
Remembering Gospel Truths Amidst Evil
We are mere sojourners passing through this world, proclaiming the hope of the world to come, with our eyes fixed on Jesus.
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
You Are an Immortal Letter
The world needs letters of immortality, with the message that only Christ can offer.
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