Sin is the self turned in on itself.
Faith is the opposite of sin — it’s the self turning away from the self to God.
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Christians, a reminder: Jesus cancelled every funeral he ever attended. He will reverse your funeral, too, at the last day.
The gospel in its new covenant form was first proclaimed in a graveyard — a graveyard that, not coincidentally, was also a garden.
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Most contemporary Christian worship music is the spiritual equivalent of estrogen in the water supply. If estrogen in water turns frogs gay, what do you think that music is doing to you? To the other men in your church?
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Liturgy is the best form of cradle-to-grave pastoral care a church can provide for her people.
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Usually children are glad to receive an inheritance. So why do so many contemporary Christians completely reject the church’s tradition – a spiritual inheritance passed on to us? We have beautiful hymns we didn’t compose, stout confessions and catechisms we didn’t write, magnificent liturgies and prayer books handed on to us, glorious stories of the faithful tearing down Satan’s strongholds and building up the kingdom of Christ. All of that is freely given to us – the heritage of the Spirit’s work over the centuries. Do not despise it. Embrace it, build upon it, improve it. Recognize that the church is not supposed to start from scratch in every generation. Just like the Israelites got to freely possess cities they didn’t build when they came into the promised land, so we inherit a city of God that has been built for millennia before we got here.
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In 1 Corinthians 14:26, Paul is NOT praising the Corinthians for their individualism in worship, as if “each one of you brings a hymn, a revelation, a lesson, etc.,” is a good thing.
He’s actually correcting their disordered, chaotic worship, and calling them to do things decently and in good order. Worship is communal. It is participatory, but the participation is disciplined and ordered.
A worship service is not an egalitarian free-for-all where each person gets to do his own thing. It’s an ordered, structured liturgy in the presence of the King, led by a qualified, ordained, and accountable man, who represents Jesus to his bride in a special way.
God is not a God of confusion and chaos, but of peace and order – this should be evident in the way we worship.
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The church is a “she,” not an “it.”
In Ephesians 5, the husband’s body is his wife. The temple is definitely feminine in Scriptural categories, eg, the same language used for building the woman in Genesis 2 is used for building the tabernacle, the male priest enters the temple by passing through the veil, etc. The church is also our Mother, another feminine image.
I’m not saying male imagery cannot be used. The church is a royal priesthood, an army, son/Israel of God, etc. But the corporate imagery is mainly feminine.
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Calvinism worthy of the name has always had both the covenant and predestination – the revealed things and the secret things (Deut. 29:29). Reformed Baptists basically shave off the covenant, or collapse it into predestination. But the idea that recovering the covenantal dimensions of Calvinism (as FV did) will lead to Arminianism is historical, theological, and exegetical nonsense. Real Calvinists will always hold together unconditional election and covenant conditionality – just like Calvin himself. Real Calvinists will hold to sacramental efficacy and the view of the visible church taught in WCF 25.2.
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The book of Ephesians is a near-comprehensive manual of ecclesiology, a handbook to guide churchmen in how to understand and live out their membership in the glorious body of Christ. The book of Ephesians lays out the identity and calling of the church, the gifts that belong to the church, and the church’s way of life.
But Ephesians is not just ecclesiology. It’s also eschatology. It declares the new reality brought about by Christ’s exaltation. We do not just *see* the world differently; the world really is different now that Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father. He is enthroned in heavenly realms and we are seated there with him. Ephesians works out the implications of this new reality for culture. The church is God’s new humanity, an eschatological people in union with the risen and ascended Christ, living out transformed lives in our speech, sexual ethics, work, and family life.
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The book of Proverbs is nothing less than a guide to reality.
Proverbs is a revelation of the nature of things. It’s a clue to mystery of the way the world works.
Proverbs does not solve all of life’s puzzles — for that you must turn to Ecclesiastes, which shows us there are puzzles in this life we cannot solve. But Proverbs does show how to put enough of the pieces of the puzzle together to live a satisfying and blessed life.
Proverbs shows us how to go with the grain of reality in the way we live our lives. If you go against the grain of reality, you are bound to get splinters.
Proverbs is training in the art and skill of living well. It’s reveals the pathway to the good life.
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The church is the lone bulwark against the principalities and powers.
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“History belongs to the intercessors.” — Walter Wink Those who pray rule the world.
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