Notice I did not entitle this post “The Simplicity of Child-Bearing,” which is a labor intensive process, rife with many pains and (possible) complications. God made this abundantly clear to us in Genesis 3:16: “I will surely multiply your pain in child-bearing; in pain you shall bring forth children.” Therefore, already and not yet mothers [...]
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As you know, I did not comment much on Luke 2, so I will offer some comments in passing, albeit brief. It is not that I think Luke 2 isn’t worth blogging about, but these posts largely deal with what is brought up in family worship with my wife. For example, the other night she [...]
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Luke 3 can arguably be divided into two main parts: Luke 3:3-22 adumbrating (outlining) the ministry of John the Baptist. Luke 3:23-38 providing a genealogical record of Jesus. I have already discussed (some of) the importance of passages like Luke 3:1-2 in a previous post on Luke 1:1-4. Nevertheless, it seems prudent to point out [...]
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Luke 1, as well as Matthew 1, Mark 1, and John 1, provide an account of Jesus’s birth. Therefore, even the most cursory statements on Luke 1 should not go without (some) mention of the Incarnation (“enfleshment”) of Jesus Christ. That Man, who existed before the world (John 17:5) and by whom all things were [...]
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This Lord’s Day my wife and I started reading Luke in family worship. I found great benefit and joy from the first chapter, so I thought it might be a worthwhile experience to attempt to blog through the Gospel of Luke in a cursory way. Over the next few weeks I will try to post [...]
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“You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain” (Ex 20:7). Ecclesiastes begins and ends with Qoheleth saying, “Vanity of vanities; all is vanity!” (Eccl 1:2; 12:8). Nearly every topic mentioned in the book concludes as follows: [...]
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My wife and I will be celebrating our third wedding anniversary on March 7, 2012. We chose the March 7th date for the following two reasons: The date was six months from the date on which we were engaged, my twenty-third birthday. The date had “some” ordinal relation to the numeral three. We were engaged [...]
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“After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. So Jesus said to the Twelve, ‘Do you want to go away as well?’ Simon Peter answered him, ‘Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that [...]
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“The state is assigned a ministry of the sword in the execution of justice against evildoers (Romans 13:1-4). The state is not assigned the duty of educating our children. It is highly questionable whether it is wise for Christian parents to send their covenant children to a school system operated by the state which is [...]
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I would like to use all of the fame I have garnered from my blog posts to direct the readers’ attention to Ephesians. May this post stir you up by way of reminder (2 Pet 1:13). “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife [...]
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Readers of this blog should know that I enjoy B. B. Warfield’s work (see: here). I value his contribution to American Presbyterianism to the nth degree. Below is an excerpt from Warfield’s On the Revision of the Confession of Faith. The occasion for Warfield’s words comes after the General Assembly inquired of its presbyteries whether [...]
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For those who read this blog, it should be noted that I am no Pietist. For those who do not, the same is true. However, in preparation for my Master’s thesis, which deals with American Presbyterianism during the Colonial Period, I came across a quote worth posting. The man who wrote it was Gilbert Tennent, [...]
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“You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, [...]
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“And God spoke all these words, saying, ‘I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me’” (Ex 20:1-3). This is the First Commandment God gave to His people. It is short, safe, and sure. In [...]
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Exodus 19ff is known to us as God’s giving of the Law. He spoke all those words (Ex 20:1) and He wrote all those words (Ex 31:18). These two facets of communicating the Word of God form the revelatory basis of inscripturation: verbal and written. Historically, the Church has called the revelation of His divine law [...]
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The Church Doctrine of Inspiration, coupled with the Doctrine of the Sufficiency of Scripture, must be maintained at all costs. I hope in reading this post (and others) you will be encouraged and comforted by these doctrinal truths. I pray that you will practice these things and immerse yourself in them and, in so doing, [...]
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I would like to draw some attention to Jim Hamilton’s blog, For His Renown. Hamilton, preaching pastor of Kenwood Baptist Church and professor of Biblical Theology at SBTS, discusses the recent Committee on Bible Translation’s NIV 2011 changes. I believe some of the conclusions the CBT reached have implications for a vast majority of Christians. [...]
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The following is an excerpt from D. A. Carson’s Exegetical Fallacies (1996). In it he teaches about common interpretive errors we may make when we are explaining a biblical text. I thought this section was worth quoting because the mistake(s) he deals with are particularly common. I post this in the hope that we—myself included—no [...]
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For what reason(s) might one leave the church? John Calvin, the French reformer, has answered this question well, in my opinion. His conclusions are worth considering. Therefore, I have quoted him, at some length, for our reading pleasure. They exclaim that it is impossible to tolerate the vice which everywhere stalks abroad like a pestilence. [...]
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I know that you cannot convert your child. I know well that they who are born again are born, not of the will of man, but of God. But I know also that God says expressly, “Train up a child in the way he should go,” and that He never laid a command on man [...]
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Old Testament, So What? Much can be said of an ever-increasing conformity to culture. Postmodernity has the church not in its sights, but in its teeth. Postmodernism brought in her train,to name a few, secularism, humanism, relativism, materialism, and pragmatism. The acceptance of each of these ideologies has had devastating consequences on the Christian mind. [...]
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Anne Rice, While I think your statements regarding Christianity are meritless and disrespectful to the Christian community at large, I also doubt their sincerity. I would sooner believe that your statements are publicity stunts intended to gain fans and followers than based on genuine spiritual convictions. But I do not have the authority or responsibility [...]
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The mind has left at the expense of a prodigal heart. Evangelicals have been deeply sinful in being anti-intellectual ever since the 1820s and 1830s. For the longest time we didn’t pay the cultural price for that because we had the numbers, the social zeal, and the spiritual passion for the gospel. But today we [...]
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