Category – Worship

Preachers often give thought to the question of how they will get the message of the gospel out to people who need to hear it. The church is, after all, supposed to evangelize the nations. While preachers are ready to preach God’s word, there is the practical question of what…
CONTINUE

On this day as you revel in the cheer of the season, open gifts, celebrate with family, and perhaps take off to the movie theater to catch the latest show, consider that our triune God loved you before the foundation of the world. When God the Father swore an oath…
CONTINUE

One of the things my family does each Thanksgiving is, before we partake of our meal, we sing the first verse of the hymn, “Now Thank We All Our God,” which states: Now Thank we all our God with heart and hands and voices, who wondrous things has done, in…
CONTINUE

When new seminarians first begin their theological education I suspect they are overwhelmed with the tidal wave of new terminology that comes their way. Terms like eschatological, supralapsarian, kenotic christology, hapax legomenon, merism, and the like come flooding in and incites fear in the most intellectually stout-hearted students. In fact,…
CONTINUE

When you study for the ministry you will take a number of preaching classes as a part of the Master of Divinity curriculum. One of the inevitabilities is that students end up reflecting the preaching style and conviction of their professor. Someone once commented to me that they could tell…
CONTINUE

A pet peeve of mine is when ministers stand in the pulpit and read the Bible and do so with no inflection. It sounds like the pastor is reading entries in a dictionary—they don’t inflect, run sentences together, ignore punctuation, and mispronounce words. Despite the fact that the Bible is…
CONTINUE

When you go to church what do you hope to get out of the sermon? This is a question we should ask ourselves on a regular basis. I think most people rightly want to be edified, encouraged, and comforted. There are plenty of circumstances in life that cause us to…
CONTINUE

Regardless of your denominational affiliation, one doctrine that unites all Christians against other religions is the doctrine of the trinity. Whether Protestant or Roman Catholic, all so-called Christians affirm the doctrine that we worship one God who subsists in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Westminster Confession of…
CONTINUE

One of the things my wife constantly tells me is, “Don’t forget to smile!” It’s a simple thing, really, but something that I fail to do. You see, ever since I was born I have a tendency to walk around with a scowl on my face—in fact, my forehead has…
CONTINUE

I can remember listening to my critics in seminary as they berated me for my theology, “You Calvinists have everything figured out—you put God in your box and leave no room for mystery!” I never understood this accusation because, in reality, my Arminian critics were the ones who left no…
CONTINUE