So what does it mean to pray like a Puritan? This is the subject of the book’s introduction and Elmer answers by saying that their aim was “neither casual nor perfunctory prayer. The prayers of the Puritans shook lives to the core, pled with a sovereign God for mercy, and praised him in the brightest... Continue Reading

“The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty” (Exodus 34:6-7). To remember the Lord’s name as David does in Psalm 119 v 55 is... Continue Reading

Praying in Jesus’s name aims at his glory, and the Father’s glory in him. “Whatever you ask in my name,” he says, “this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son” (John 14:13). When we pray with others, and they hear our prayers, invoking Jesus’s name redounds to his fame, his... Continue Reading

The Christian life is the graced process of becoming in practice what we already are in position.  There is mystery and deep complexity to these truths – not the entangling, cutting complexity of a thorn-bush, but the cooling, comforting complexity of ocean waves on a warm summer’s day.  It is unspeakably refreshing to contemplate the... Continue Reading

If you want celebrity, you can’t simply expound the Word each week: you need some unique schtick to distance you from the pack, and create hype around your personality. Some Christians are so embedded in the celebrityism and exhibitionism of the web that they cannot see that these are hostile to the gospel.   Church leaders... Continue Reading

Before a church evaluates a pastoral candidate’s gifting or talent, it must first evaluate his character. To be sure, for a man aspiring to ministry, it may help to be winsome, to be eloquent, or to possess a magnetic personality. Yet, before one looks for these secondary—and tertiary—strengths, one must first meet the qualifications of... Continue Reading

We want to see churches enveloped by a real joy in God because of what He has done for us in Christ. You see this in Colossians 1 as Paul, himself in prison, prays for a church full of people whom he has never met—that they would understand the greatness of God and joyfully respond... Continue Reading

Scripture presents the gift of God’s Son as a historic fact that demands a response. The coming of the Magi fulfilled ancient prophesies: “The Gentiles shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising” (Is. 60:3).  Matthew’s record of their interaction with Herod the Great roots the birth narrative in secular... Continue Reading

When we are called to Christ through the effectual work of the Holy Spirit, we no longer desire to be seen. Our belief in Christ’s work on the cross on our behalf and our profession of faith in Him is essentially saying that we want to hide behind Him. We don’t want the world and... Continue Reading

Pious meditation is the duty of every Christian; or, It is the high institution of Christ, and greatly incumbent duty of Christians, to exercise themselves much in holy meditation. A rare and soul-enriching way; none know the sweetness and blessings of it, but such as exercise themselves in it.   Nathanael Ranew died in 1677,... Continue Reading