Father, help us to not live in column a: sexual immorality and coarseness, which leads to exclusion from your kingdom. Help us to move into the beauty of column b: sex as a subject of thanksgiving, sex as something that draws us closer to you. Thank you for all your good gifts including sex. Thank... Continue Reading

The evidence is not difficult to detect: poorly prepared and delivered sermons, failure to visit and care for the flock, chaotic administration, and invisibility in the community. Laziness is a serious sin. Haphazard shepherding of God’s flock is inexcusable, a dereliction of God-given duty. It also insults the congregation who provides his salary so that... Continue Reading

Bavinck’s life as a theological titan began modestly. Born on December 13, 1854, in Hoogeveen, the Netherlands, he grew up (and remained) a loyal son of the marginalized Reformed community that stemmed from an ecclesiastical separation known as the Afscheiding. Bavinck’s father, the deeply pious Rev. Jan Bavinck, played a prominent role in the dissenting denomination,... Continue Reading

“Had I been minded to play the coward, I could have escaped,” Bunyan later remembered. But he had no mind for that now. He spoke what closing exhortation he could as the constable forced him from the house, a man with no weapon but his Bible.   On the morning of November 12, 1660, a... Continue Reading

The Apostle tells us in 2 Corinthians chapter 5, ‘Knowing the terror of the Lord we persuade men.’ There were two great motives urging the Apostle, driving him on, in all his travelling and preaching: ‘The love of Christ constraineth me’, and ‘knowing the terror of the Lord.’ Those two motives should always govern us... Continue Reading

Encouragement expressed by a sincere believer about one’s preaching, or one’s pastoral care, is not often a seduction from Satan for us to hoard the glory that belongs to God. Instead, it is a fellow Christian telling us that the Word has hit the mark, or pastoral care has reached their heart. We should welcome... Continue Reading

Jesus taught us to “bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you” (Luke 6:28). If this is true with regard to our relationship to our enemies, how much more of our relationship to an offending brother or sister? When someone does something to hurt us, we should pray that God would grant... Continue Reading

Though paedobaptists often appealed to continuity from the Abrahamic covenant and the sign of circumcision, Judson could not help but notice that this analogy was applied selectively and there were significant points of inconsistency in their use of that analogy.[3] The more Judson sought to answer these questions, the more he was forced to conclude... Continue Reading

The remarkable thing about humiliation and adoration in the heart of Charles Simeon is that they were inseparable. Simeon was utterly unlike most of us today who think that we should get rid once and for all of feelings of vileness and unworthiness as soon as we can. For him, adoration only grew in the... Continue Reading

So what was the secret of the Protestant Reformation’s success? Luther himself writes, “I opposed indulgences and all the papists, but never with force. I simply taught, preached, and wrote God’s word; otherwise I did nothing. And while I slept or drank Wittenberg beer with my friends Philipp [Melanchthon] and [Nikolaus von] Amsdorf, the Word so... Continue Reading