I Will Be Your King
Who wants to be a King of self-destroyed people? God does.
Do you not need a mighty King? Who can bring order into your chaos? You can’t; no one else can but God. Who can subdue your unruly passions and regulate your anarchic thoughts? You can’t; no one else can but God. I will be your king.— Hosea 13:10 Who wants to be a King of self-destroyed... Continue Reading
First Rest and then Work
In the Old Covenant of Grace, work is followed by rest; in the New Covenant of Grace, rest is followed by work.
From the resurrection on, nothing else is said of the Mosaic, ceremonial, seventh-day sabbath. God’s people no longer seem to work and rest after the old rotation and strict legislation of the ancient Mosaic manner. Instead, following the Holy Spirit’s guidance and apostolic leadership, the church honors both the Creation Mandate and the Fourth Commandment... Continue Reading
Do Not Grieve the Holy Spirit
We grieve the Spirit when we sin and we especially when we sin in ways that cause discord, perhaps because unity is a special work of the Spirit.
We need to remember that the Holy Spirit is not a distant, abstract deity and certainly not an impersonal force. No, the Holy Spirit is a person, for only a genuine and personable being is capable of this kind of thinking, feeling, and emotion. In fact, when we understand that the Spirit is a person... Continue Reading
A Rejoinder to ‘Theonomy, Bahnsen and the Federal Vision’
A response: Federal Vision is a real problem, but its roots are not endemic in Theonomy.
Just because a person speaks highly of the law of God in one place in one book does not make him a legalist or the father of legalism. Just because a person has a high view of the efficacy of baptism (as does the Westminster Confession of Faith) in one place in one book does... Continue Reading
Reformed Protestants Who Pick Nits
The New Calvinists should see the hand of God in the old Calvinism that emerged in places like Zurich and Strasbourg well before John Calvin was even a Protestant.
Nor should Martin Bucer be forgotten. He initiated reforms in the city of Strasbourg a year or so after Zwingli’s activities. Bucer also put his stamp indelibly on Calvin when in 1538 Geneva’s city authorities told Calvin to leave. Calvin ministered in Strasbourg for two years to a French speaking congregation and taught at Strasbourg’s... Continue Reading
Does God Really Care About Our Suffering?
Our God is not stoic and unaffected, but is touched by our afflictions.
When you are suffering, how do you think God responds to you? Do you imagine him saying something like: “Hey buck up. It doesn’t hurt that bad.” “Somebody call the Waaaaambulance” “Come on, you big baby, shake it off. Get over it.” Our heavenly Father is filled with compassion for his blood-bought children. He has... Continue Reading
Theonomy, Greg Bahnsen, and the Federal Vision- Part Two
Bahnsen’s writings laid the foundation for the Federal Vision, particularly in the areas of the sacraments, conditional perseverance, apostasy, the mono-covenantal structure of Scripture, and the law.
Bahnsen is guilty of two errors in his work on theonomy. First, he established a new paradigm for the law by connecting the believer’s obedience to the whole Old Testament law in exhaustive detail. Second, he emphasized obedience to the law so strenuously that he often comes close to the dangerous Pelagian spectrum of errors.... Continue Reading
Explainer: Divine Simplicity and the Trinitarian Controversy
If you have followed the recent upheaval over the Trinity and gender, you may have asked yourself these questions
This doctrine [divine simplicity] was once taken for granted by basically everyone, from the earliest days of the church through to the Reformation and beyond, and only became unfamiliar quite recently. I’m not going to be able to explain all the details of the idea here. My objective is twofold: to give a basic outline... Continue Reading
What Did Jesus Do for Women?
In a world where women had little or no legal rights and got little or no respect as intellectuals or spiritual people, Jesus came along and turned the world's view of women upside-down.
Contemporary feminists often blame Christianity for being anti-women. Some neo-pagan-minded feminists put “goddess” bumper stickers on their cars, imagining that a return to the days of goddess-worship would liberate them from the male-dominated oppression of the church. A close reading of the New Testament against the cultural background of the first-century Roman Empire tells a... Continue Reading
Your Work Never Goes Unseen
Our work is done for God's glory and fame, not our own. It's not done for the praise or accolades of man but for the sake of our Savior.
So friends, if you are working hard for the Lord, don’t give up. Don’t despair. All your work done for God’s glory is storing up for you eternal treasures that far outweigh any accolades or acknowledgement in the here and now. None of it is wasted or lost. Your quiet faithfulness in all things, even... Continue Reading