Family

I love to see families walking through the doors of the auditorium on Lord's Day morning. I see each of them as a living stone coming together to form a living temple in order to worship the living God. They were once like the dry bones of Ezekiel's vision scattered about in the valley of the...

Dorothy Leigh and Her Advice to Her Sons One of the best-selling 17 th -century manuals on parenting was written by a woman, Dorothy Leigh. What may seem perfectly normal to us was unusual in an age when women’s writings were rarely taken seriously. Books on marriage, parenting, and even midwifery...

A few weeks ago the session on which I serve was interviewing some young teenage girls for communicant membership in the church. When a child in the congregation I serve approaches me about making their profession of faith before the session I ask them two questions. First, I ask to hear their...

In a previous post, I mentioned how Jesus is our true retirement—our true Sabbath rest that awaits us. As you think about riches, bank accounts, 401(k)s, and your finances in general, we need to remember that only what we have in Christ is truly imperishable. Again, there is nothing wrong with wise...

The Shocking Case of the Hungarian Galley Slaves – A 17 th -century Tale of Religious Persecution One of the worst examples of religious persecution in European history happened in the decade between 1671 and 1681, when the Hungarian Roman Catholic authorities determined to eradicate Protestantism...

John Bunyan and the Women Who Shaped His Life If it’s true that behind every great man there is a great woman, John Bunyan had a good company of great women behind him. Mother We don’t know hardly anything about Bunyan’s mother, Margaret Bentley. Like her husband Thomas and their children, she was...

Dear Theophilus, You’ve just come to place your faith in the Lord, Jesus Christ. Your heart is, no doubt, enraptured with the glorious grace which God has shown you; the beauty of Christ, your Savior. Your heart is on fire for the Lord. As well it should be, brother - keep that flame burning hot. I...

Monica of Tagaste – A Persistent Mother Augustine was a difficult teenager, the kind that keeps parents up at night. The restlessness he would later describe in his Confessions was already evident at a young age, especially to his mother Monica. But she never gave up. She upheld him constantly in...

But the L ORD of hosts, him you shall honor as holy. Let him be your fear, and let him be your dread. – Isaiah 8:13 My dearest Theophilus: We live in a soft age. Our idols are soft and so our fears too. In the old days our idols were hard. Literally. Made of stone. Made of wood. Sculpted and carved...

We probably all have bank accounts with savings, and maybe investments and 401(k)s. Wisdom would suggest that while we trust God we also should be good stewards and save. You want to have in inheritance—at the end of the road of your work life, you want to have a nest egg. This doesn’t make you...