One of the beautiful moments for me in the ordination/installation service is when the members  “promise to give them the honor, obedience, encouragement, and assistance .… their office….entitles them” At this moment the people stand in support of their officers. It is an encouragement that is needed for the work is hard and often discouraging. With... Continue Reading

The Passover meal looked forward to the Messiah who had yet to come in history. The Lord’s Supper looks back to the Messiah who has already come in history. We live not in the era of promise but in the era of fulfillment. We are the people of God upon whom “the end of the ages has come” (1... Continue Reading

Hebrews does have a conception of the people of God sharing in a union that links their destinies with the head of the people, the Son Jesus Christ. The believer can have every confidence in Christ and Christ’s ability precisely because he acts as the representative of the eschatological people of God. Because Christ entered... Continue Reading

Evidence suggests that almost all women [97.5%] do not regret giving birth, even if their baby is doomed to die, and that abortion in such cases leads to less positive outcomes. A 2018 article from the Journal of Clinical Ethics, entitled “‘I Would Do It All Over Again’: Cherishing Time and the Absence of Regret in Continuing... Continue Reading

If the gospel is no longer the best news to us; if we feel our affection for Jesus growing stale; if what was once bubbling out deep from our souls never now escapes our lips; then perhaps we have lost sight of just how desperate our situation is apart from Jesus. The good news of... Continue Reading

Though we can never eliminate our subjectivity in the act of reading–ought not even to try to do so if we would read the Bible as God intends–we can certainly do better than reduce Scripture to a Rorschach ink blot or muse for pious psychedelics to trip on. But this is not just a postmodern problem;... Continue Reading

Structuring worship to accommodate unbelievers is misguided because these unbelievers are not seeking after God. Seeking after God begins at conversion, and if we are to structure our worship with a view to seekers, then we must structure it for believers, since only believers are seekers. When we look at the early church, we see... Continue Reading

You get the story wrong if you don’t see Jesus as the center and the goal. But when you get it right, you understand, as Stephen did, that suffering makes sense. For even our Lord and Master was crucified. Why would we expect comfort and ease? Stephen understood that his proclamation was not likely to... Continue Reading

No doubt, it was Brainerd’s desire for holiness, zeal for the conversion of the lost, earnestness in prayer and perseverance in the midst of unparalleled affliction that set him apart as one of the most important figures in church history. When we read his Diary we are faced with our own lack in comparison with what we... Continue Reading

Some blamed his mother, who told him stories about frightening Gaelic spirits. Some suggested he could not deal with the apparent contradictions between his faith and his geological studies. Interestingly, this second theory is still strong today. Yet, its proponents don’t know Hugh Miller. He was never afraid of the truth, nor of the questions... Continue Reading