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 Grace
How to Manage Quarrelers and Heretics: Notes on 2 Timothy 2:22-26
Theological error and heresy constantly plagued the church during the life of the Apostle Paul, so it is no surprise that his final instructions to Timothy contain essential counsel on the right way to address error and heresy …
Hrotsvit of Gandersheim and Her Christian Plays
Hrotsvit of Gandersheim and Her Christian Plays Anyone who is familiar with the works of the Roman playwright Terence (185-159 BC) knows that they are an interesting depiction of the realities of his day. They are comedies, and generally…
Argument from Culture
Argument from Culture There is an argument, not exactly new, that has been making its way through the church today. The argument from culture, let’s call it the argumentam ad culturam, is an attempt to undermine the legitimacy and primacy…
Daily Bread and Daily Pardon
The Lord’s Prayer is, without question, the best-known prayer of all time. Embedded at the very heart of the prayer life of God’s family, but also shared and treasured by those nations and empires through the ages that have espoused…
John Bradford and the Comfort of God’s Sovereign Choice
John Bradford and the Comfort of God’s Sovereign Choice From Treasurer to Preacher A native of Manchester, John Bradford (c. 1510-1555) started his career as vice-treasurer of the English army in France. An accusation of fraud (which he strongly…
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…
What Is the Gospel?
In a brief but hilarious reformation21 blog post, “Can You Speak Gospelese?“, Paul Levy noted that the word “gospel,” had become “an adjective which if you want people to think you’re kosher in conservative evangelicalism you add it, seemingly, to…
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…