Theology for Everyone

Many years ago, a friend and I decided to visit the church of a famous pastor. We were both in seminary and wanted the opportunity to hear the man in person. Not only was the sermon good, but the church was also wonderful. Almost as soon as we entered the building, a couple from the congregation...

Those who have experienced a regular Sunday evening service, often observe a “quietness” about them fondly. The morning service is associated with the frenetic pace of rounding up households with hair and outfits assembled, racing to roles in the service, coffee hour, and Sunday school, and back...

“C’mon, Mom. Let’s do it.” When a daughter suggests memorizing a chapter of the Bible together, what can you say? So we memorized the eighth chapter of Romans this past spring. And I have to say, it was exhilarating! My spirit soared as Paul built his case for life in the Spirit, our adoption, the...

Psalm 133:1 extols, Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity! It teaches us to appreciate how God ’ s good blessings are especially experienced in the worshipful union and communion of His saints. This pleasantness is something Christians enjoy in local...

Psalm 132 has a very different feel than the rest of the Psalms of Ascent. In fact, this Psalm is explicitly Messianic, speaking of the Davidic promises and line and the Lord’s Anointed. As a Psalm of Ascent then, this song brings the traveling worshippers into focus on the city and king that God...

Adam and Eve were tempted to believe, “You will be like God,” and that lie has been deceiving us ever since. We may not self-identify as deities demanding sacrifices and overt worship, but we may fall for subtler versions. One variation combines ideas that are very common today: I have no limits. I...

You would not know it from a vantage point on one of the many docks dotting the shoreline of Lake Murray, but this manmade reservoir is uniquely massive. The so-called “Jewel of South Carolina” has a surface area of 50,000 acres, over 650 miles of shoreline, and retains about 763 billion gallons of...

“They’re trying to get me” is the catch phrase of the paranoid mind. The question it raises, is the identity of “they”. But the leading declaration of Psalm 129 is quite different. It is not a statement of fears but of memory: “Many time have they afflicted me from my youth, may Israel now say.” (1...

As my wife and I anticipate our seventh covenant child (and third daughter) joining us early next year, I told our other children that it is their fault that we’re having another baby! Because they are all so amazing—so wonderful and so precious, and so we wanted to love another of them in our...

The culture in which we live is diametrically opposed to the idea of the family as set forth in Psalm 127. Here, the Psalmist refers to a household, composed of a father and mother who married early and are blessed by an abundance of children, as a direct and wonderful blessing from God. It is, in...