Holy Spirit

For many people January is the month of new beginnings. By now, some of you have made it a few weeks on your new diet or exercise program, Bible reading plan, caffeine-free mornings, social media fast, budget, or endeavor to read more books. These are all good goals, but they pale in comparison to...

Public worship can all too easily feel lacklustre and mundane, not just for a congregation, but also for the one entrusted with leading it. This is not some new phenomenon. It has been a challenge for the church throughout its history. Indeed, it was at such a low point in the history of worship,...

Irresistible grace is the fourth part of the Tulip acronym and is the one doctrine of grace that every Christian, deep down, can never deny. No Christian will balk in a Sunday morning worship service when the congregation sings Amazing Grace (written by John Newton, a Calvinist pastor of the...

To understand anger and its peaceful Biblical therapies, we make use of the Puritan John Downame’s book, The Cure of Unjust Anger . [1] Downame focuses on Ephesians 4:26 to frame his discussion: Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath. Downame describes anger as, “…an...

PCRT and Praying to the Triune God The Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals is renowned for its long-standing yearly conference: PCRT, the Philadelphia Conference on Reformed Theology. Once again, the event has been compelled to move online due to COVID restrictions. This year’s PCRT theme is...

Many years ago my wife and I participated in a very large scavenger hunt. We had tremendous fun and wasted a lot of gas! But imagine a humorous scenario. Picture one of our colleagues finding a clue and instead of using it to press on to find the next clue he became enamored with the current clue...

The Korean Revival and Following Persecution The Japanese victory in the 1904-1904 Russo-Japanese War and the consequent annexation of Korea to Japan caused a flurry of patriotic sentiments among Koreans. By that time, Christianity had made great strides into the country, and its leaders were known...

Goodness is a word that can obviously mean upright. Think of the oft used comparison between good and evil. But the word can also point up the benefit or qualities possessed by another. We might say something like, “The teachers are good here.” Of course, by that we mean that the teachers are the...

The dangers facing the church today are subtle. They are like those facing the family. Imagine a young man sits his parents down at the kitchen table for a talk. He then outs himself as gay or perhaps transgendered. The danger facing that family at that moment is very real. Traditionally they have...

We see and hear it all the time people talking about faith; banners that say “faith, family, friends,” or “faith makes things possible” and another is, “when you’re close to the edge, faith is knowing you will be taught to fly,” and of course we just gotta have it, or so says George Michael. While...