Lead us not into Temptation
It is all too easy to be so focused on the individual components of the Lord’s Prayer – the ‘petitions’ of which it is comprised – that we lose sight of its overall topography, or landscape. Even though the details…
Tag God the Father
If I Could Preach Only One Sermon: Luke 18
If I could preach only one sermon, I would preach my one allotted message to the visible church. I would preach with the weighty concern that the baptized are on an irreversible course toward eternity. And the baptized, those well-ordered…
Five Crucial Things for Sunday Morning
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…
Dorothy Leigh and Her Advice to Her Sons
Dorothy Leigh and Her Advice to Her Sons One of the best-selling 17th-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…
Children & Church Membership
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…
Seven Letters Seven Dangers: Speaking Truth
Dear Theophilus, You have been so inquisitive. Your questions demonstrate your great desire to learn more of the faith. However, allow me in this last letter to speak to you about one of the greatest dangers facing the church today.…
Johannes Kepler and the Joy of Science
Johannes Kepler and the Joy of Science The German astronomer Johannes Kepler is counted among the greatest scientists in history. He is best known for his three laws of planetary motion, which shaped our modern understanding of the solar…
The Transgender Moment and the Technological Imperative
If a believer, perhaps a pastor, has a conversation with someone who suspects they are transgender or experiences gender dysphoria, our first response should be compassion. Imagine waking up daily and thinking, “I have the wrong body.” If we are…
Seven Letters Seven Dangers
Several weeks ago I sent my cadre of writers a question. I asked them, “If you could identify and warn your fellow believers about the greatest spiritual danger that they may face in life what would it be?” I was…
Mary Rowlandson – Seizing God in the Wilderness
Mary Rowlandson – Seizing God in the Wilderness Mary Rowlandson’s account of her experience as prisoner of war became an immediate best-seller. In fact, it was the first best-seller in America, and the first of what became a popular genre:…