Love or Hype?
Several years ago I worked for a funeral director. On one occasion I travelled with him to another city in order to recover a body. The person, a younger person, had traveled and died while out of town. On the…
Tag Grace
Word, Sacrament, and Discipline: Discipline, a True Mark?
Not all the 16th century Protestant Reformers agreed that church discipline should be considered one of the marks of a true church. Calvin, for example, spoke only of the pure preaching of the word and the right administration of…
Holding on to Hope
The very first Nancy Guthrie book my wife and I were given was Holding on to Hope. Before we had even turned a page, the title grabbed us because it resonated deeply with the needs we had been living with,…
Word, Sacrament, and Discipline: Prayer: A Sine Qua Non of a Healthy Church
One of the basic practices in the Christian life is prayer. It is a spiritual discipline that is instilled in us from our earliest days. It is uttered in private, in family devotions, and in various public settings for numerous…
Antoine Court – Organizer of the Church of the Desert
The death of Louis XIV in 1715 revitalized the hopes of the scattered Huguenots (French Protestants). After all, Louis XIV had been responsible for the revocation of the Edict of Nantes – the 1598 law that allowed for the…
Why the Virgin Birth of the Son?
Have you ever wondered why Matthew 1:23 quotes Isaiah 7:14? Perhaps the ready answer is that the quote substantiates the virgin conception and birth of Christ, which is true enough. However, the text raises a number of questions. For instance,…
For Instruction, Doctrine, and Morals: The Art of Reading
What does it mean to be a reader? What’s actually happening when someone reads a text? Ever since the rise of post-modernism these kinds of questions have been in vogue. And though many of the popular answers today are new,…
The Gospel & Joy to the World
One December, a week or two before Christmas, the worship leader announced the hymn “Joy to the World” and a woman nearby groaned, “Oh no, not ‘Joy to the World’ again.” I understand her point; she wanted a new…
Erdmann Neumeister and His Pious Orthodoxy
Erdmann Neumeister (1671-1756) hated Pietism but his music was full of vigorous piety and lively devotion. The difference was in the premises. He (as Luther had done before him) sang about a triune God who works in history and draws…
For Instruction, Doctrine, and Morals: Not the God of the Dead
For a decade the Westminster Assembly of divines (i.e., theologians) met at Westminster Abbey in London (1643-1653) to produce a Scriptural doctrinal standard and church government. During that time the well-known Confession of Faith was drawn up to explicate the…