Christ’s apostles not only dictate the doctrine and practice of churches, but the worship of churches (which is an important part of our practice). And we ought gladly allow our worship to be regulated by Scripture because we love Christ.   I am forming an argument for Scripture-regulated worship from two pillars: the authority of... Continue Reading

Neo-Calvinism is especially defective about the nature of the saeculum, which is the age between the advents of Christ. Greenbaggins invoked Vos to explain the peculiar character of the period when the ministry of word and sacrament defines the church, in the words of the Confession of Faith, as “the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, the... Continue Reading

Take a look at Colossians 3:12.  It says, “Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts…”  Now, a literal translation of compassionate hearts will read a bit differently.  It will actually translate oiktirmou splanchna as “bowels of compassion.”  And that’s not the only place we find this expression in Scripture. I’ll give one further... Continue Reading

Scripture is the words of God to you. Open the Bible anywhere and the words there could be introduced with “the Spirit says” (Heb 3:7). These words are bread for our soul (Deut 8:3). They bring life. Over the past year, I have watched how they bring this miracle of life. I have seen it in... Continue Reading

We ought to accept a person’s conversion as real until and unless he shows us something different. If a person comes into our congregation and he came from prison, we ought not to make him “prove himself” to us. Rather, we must trust that he is converted and wants to worship in a church that... Continue Reading

What’s difficult for me, and perhaps for you, is that though I am a new creature, though I am no longer a slave to loving dead things, I am still tempted to believe at times that they, and not God, will provide the joy I want. That obedience to God would kill, and not increase,... Continue Reading

When Paul sent off Onesimus with this commendation and request, the gospel ensured that though Paul was left behind in chains, in a far more profound way, Paul himself was hand-delivering his own letter. This truth, that Paul’s identity was enveloped in and expressed through Onesimus’, is a profound fruit of the gospel truth best explained... Continue Reading

Some wrongly pit the Old Testament against the New Testament, asserting that the OT is law-focused and external while the NT is heart-focused and internal. Even a cursory reading of the OT makes clear that true righteousness always involved internal faith and a transformed heart. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart... Continue Reading

There is a quiet pragmatism creeping into North American churches which measures the rightness of an action by man’s assessment of whether or not it works. Actions are justified or condemned based on the perceived benefit they accomplish. These benefits can be made to sound very spiritual, but in the end they are subjective, dependent... Continue Reading

So often, part of why we dread alone-ness is that we’re scared of our own thoughts. Worry and anxiety tend to come in at those times. When we fellowship with the Lord, when we go to him instead of getting away from those alone moments or the feelings of loneliness, we will find a new... Continue Reading