Author: Pastor Rich Lusk
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The Justification of the Good Samaritan (2003)
This essay was originally published at Theologia. The story of the Good Samaritan (Lk. 10:25-37) is one of the best known and most loved of Jesus’ parables. I am not going to attempt to exegete the passage, as that has been done admirably and ably by others. Rather, I want to briefly examine what bearing the…
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Church Discipline Questionnaire
Years ago, in 2008 to be specific, when I was still fairly new to being a solo pastor, a seminary student asked me to participate in a project he was doing. He wanted to compile views and practices from a variety of churches regarding church discipline and conflict resolution. I came across this document in…
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Confession of Sin
In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, this church opens wide her doors and offers welcome to all who are spiritually weak and seek rest; to all who mourn and long for comfort; to all who struggle and desire victory; to all who sin and need the Savior; to all who are strangers and want fellowship; to all who hunger and…
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Jesus and the Blessed Man
This essay presupposes and builds upon my sermon on Psalms 127-128, available here. The first part of the sermon focused on the man in these two psalms and that’s what I want to look at further here. If we want to know what it means to be a blessed man, perhaps we need to start with…
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A Short Note on “Patriarchy”: Reclaiming Biblical Terminology
The term “patriarchy” is controversial. I used to be opposed to the term “patriarchy” and was settled on the term “complementarianism” to describe the relationship of the sexes. I was especially frustrated that many who called themselves “patriarchal” seemed to have weird “hyper-patriarchal” views. Perhaps that is still the case in some quarters. But a…
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A Short Note on Headship
A man is the head of the household. To put it another way, the man is the patriarch of his home. He has responsibility for his home, as well as authority over his home. Today, there are some in “complementarian” circles who seek to limit a man’s headship to his wife, and then claim the…
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The TPC Baptismal Liturgy
This is an email I send out to our congregation occasionally to instruct them about our practice of infant baptism — not just why we baptize infants, but also why we baptize the way we do, why we use the liturgy we do, etc. This is a good opportunity for me to remind you where…
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Thoughts for Young Men Wanting to Marry
“The Christian church is there to remind people, young men included and perhaps even first and foremost, that they have a woman to find, a garden to walk in, a family to nurture, an ark to build, a land to conquer, a ladder to heaven to build, and the utter, terrible catastrophe of life to…
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Do I Believe in Baptismal Regeneration?
I’d have to do some research on my hard drive or in my old email folders to be sure, but I think this essay was probably written about 2004 or 2005, when the Federal Vision controversy was raging. Because this essay has been one of my more commented-on baptismal essays, I thought it would be…
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Covenant Renewal Worship
What is the purpose of gathering together on the first day of each week for worship? If worship gathers up the gifts of the past week and gives thanks for them, if worship lays a foundation of grace for the week to come, what does that mean? How does it work? What are we supposed…
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