But closer inspection of the scriptures reveals a God who carefully places His people in the midst of the culture, not for the purpose of condemnation and prudish self-righteousness, but for the sake of influence, love, and yes, even betterment. Like you may have been, when I first heard of Whitney Houston’s death I was... Continue Reading

Mr. Kristof is a serious man, and he raises serious issues in this column. But with this one simplistic and condescending sentence he throws religious liberty under the bus and reveals what makes sense to so many in the secular elite. They will try their best, they promise, to respect our religious beliefs, and to... Continue Reading

It should be observed that the reason intinction developed as a method for receiving the wine was the fear that the laity might spill the precious blood. It is intimately related to the doctrine of transubstantiation and therefore out of accord with both Scripture and the Westminster Standards. Conservative Presbyterians love the Bible. In fact,... Continue Reading

Narrative in the Bible is always descriptive, in that it describes for us what happened. Additionally, it’s sometimes prescriptive, in that it tells us what to do and/or how to do it. It is the task of the exegete to know the difference. The committee, in its report, fails to even address or even acknowledge... Continue Reading

What I am saying is that most of our varying critiques of musical forms are often just narcissism disguised as concern about theological and liturgical downgrade. That’s why I think we need more, and better, worship wars. I have the worship music tastes of a seventy-five year-old woman. There I admitted it. That’s because a... Continue Reading

Scripture tells us (Hebrews 13:17) that some people will be hard to pastor, and tells us not to be those people. Knox and Ginger are the exact opposite –they have always been more of a blessing to me than I could ever be to them.) During Knox’s long hospitalization, the Lord gave me some wonderful... Continue Reading

The extent of the problem is entirely missed by “grace only” preaching. Hypocrites, “false professors”, as the Puritans called them, and the self-deceived, all professing believers, all members of the visible church, have to be taken into account as the church’s preaching even as they are in the Apostles’ epistles. “Cheap grace” is the term... Continue Reading

Finally, we turn to the law of God because sometimes we need to do things just because God says so. In the garden, God told Adam and Eve not to eat the tree, but he never told them why. Some of us simply hate to follow a direction unless we know all the reasons why... Continue Reading

Returning from a counseling session, Pastor Dave Dively of Redeemer PCA in Louisville, KY was thrilled to once again see God work through an issue of repentance in the life of a fellow believer. He posted these comments for a number of friends and gave permission for The Aquila Report to publish it with the... Continue Reading

And when the pastor stands in the pulpit to preach on John 8 and never mentions any of the text-critical issues with that passage, the congregation, all of whom are aware of the problem because they all have study Bibles with notes at that point, walk away not any better equipped to study their Bibles... Continue Reading