Prayer

As I watched the events of Hurricane Helene unfold at the end of September, and heard of the devastation those in the western part of my state were facing, my heart was grieved. Normally I’m further removed geographically from natural disasters of this sort, but this time it hit much closer to home...

George Schmidt, Magdalena, and the Bible Beneath the Pear Tree When the Moravian missionary George Schmidt left South Africa in 1744, he left behind a few converts, a copy of the Dutch New Testament, and a few trees he had planted, including a pear tree that had grown to provide some shade to his...

As Reformed and Presbyterian Christians, we believe in prayer. We may not be as good at it as we want to be, but every true believer will yearn to spend time with the Lord. This is true of private prayer, but it it’s also true of corporate prayer. The early church is a good example of this. On the...

Where do we turn when we are brokenhearted? Some of us turn to entertainment to distract us. Others of us throw all our time and attention to a hobby we’re good at. We may call a couple of good friends and share why our heart is broken in hopes they will cheer us. We may take a trip to the grocery...

( This article is abridged from a chapter in Glorifying and Enjoying God: 52 Devotions through the Westminster Shorter Catechism.) In the Lord’s Prayer Jesus teaches us to pray for the coming of his kingdom (Matt. 6:10). This sounds like a grand idea, something we should surely do. But how do we do...

If we fail to see to see the glory of Christ predicted in the Old Testament and then unveiled in the New Testament, we have failed to truly understand God’s Word. The Bible is replete with proclamations of the glory of Jesus Christ, and even the minor prophetic books declare the majesty of this...

The Book of Zephaniah unfolds during the days of Josiah. Who can forget those days? The pro-Assyrian party likely put this eight-year-old boy on the throne to placate the ruling nation at that time. However, the pro-Assyrian party in Judah did not factor God into the equation. Why would they? How...

There is a certain mode of preaching that tells you to shape up first so God can come into your life. It is absolutely correct that moral transformation is a necessary entailment of the good news of Jesus Christ. (Eph. 2:10; Heb. 12:14) And yet God’s saving grace always comes before and runs ahead...

As we survey the twelve so-called Minor Prophets, Micah seems to be the prophet most obviously oriented on Christ the coming Messiah. More clearly and directly than the other eleven books that make up this canonical collection, the book of Micah predicts the advent of Christ Jesus. But thou,...

Perhaps you’ve passed over Obadiah more times when flipping through your Bible than any other book in Scripture. It’s a third of the way through the Minor Prophets and it’s only one chapter consisting of only 21 verses. But if you have not read it, pause now and read through it before continuing...