Note: all quotes are from sources as noted. The only fictitious elements in these diary posts are to treat these as letters from John Calvin. I send greetings to all Protestants at the Inauguration of the 45th President of…
If all your paperwork rolled like a sea upon your desk, you’d struggle to navigate and prepare your tax returns. If you blanketed your computer’s desktop with all your digital files, you’d smother the writing of a departmental report. So…
When considering the matter of our application of Scripture, or what we can call our doctrine or theology, we really do need to think about it. Think about this—God only gave us ten commands for all life and then reduced…
There are many dimensions bound up with what it means to be a Christian. Its roots stretch back into eternity past, its experience is bound up with our existential present and its horizons take us into eternity future. It changes…
One of my favorite passages to preach for an ordination or installation service is 2 Timothy 4:5. The context is significant, since in it Paul acknowledges the challenges of pastoral ministry and the apparent success that many false teachers will…
Sometimes when people first hear the term “irresistible grace” they think that this means people are forced to take salvation against their will. They may erroneously think that people are dragged kicking and screaming into God’s kingdom even though they…
In the midst of the final week of our Lord’s earthly ministry in his estate of humiliation, Jesus has an interesting exchange with Peter about his forthcoming denial. Luke 22:31-34 recounts some of the details of this conversation and they…
It has been on my mind for quite a while to post an article on ‘sinner theologians’, but I hesitated because of its potential for being misconstrued. However, having just received the latest issue of the Westminster Theological Journal and…
Our extraordinary God loves the ordinary. And it seems that in his extraordinary salvation of sinners he loves to use ordinary means. This is true even in the extraordinarily gracious preservation of his children; ordinary means mark the road…
A Stew Pot One of the more frequently visited proverbs of my childhood came to me from my mother. “A stew pot never boils,” she would say. I felt what it meant long before I actually understood it. Explanation of…
