TPC Pastor's Page

Blog

  • The Folk Wisdom of Country Music

    I’ve written several posts over the last year or so that invoke country music as a source of folk wisdom. A few examples: — We need more dads like the one Ashley McBryde sings about in her song “Bible and a .44.” Great song, with a great vision of fatherhood. — “Well, you know what’s Read more

  • Notes on the Use of YHWH and Jehovah

    Some are arguing we should never use the name “Yahweh” or “Jehovah” for God, even when the Tetragrammaton was used in the Hebrew OT. My response: What’s the concern here? I don’t see why not knowing the exact pronunciation for the Tetragrammaton matters. We don’t know how lots of ancient words were pronounced. In some Read more

  • The Means of Grace and Pastoral Ministry 

    1 Corinthians 2:12-13 is a key text for understanding pastoral ministry, especially preaching: “[12] Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. [13] And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but Read more

  • Towards a Practical Theology of Covenant Breaking: Nothing Objective Guarantees Subjective Faithfulness

    A reminder of a point I’ve made many times in various places: Nothing objective guarantees subjective faithfulness. The objectivity of the covenant is real and it matters. Baptism, the Lord’s Supper, and the preached gospel are all gifts, objectively speaking. They are all grace in tangible form. Church membership — life in the body and Read more

  • ERH

    Rosenstock-Huessy’s brilliant “cross of reality” is an incredibly helpful way of thinking about life and ministry. The “cross of reality” integrates the tensions of human/Christian experience across time and space. One axis of the cross is the tension between past and future, the other axis is the tension between in-group and out-group. We are constantly Read more

  • Chilton on Western Civ

    David Chilton on the blessings of Christian civilization/Christendom: The whole rise of Western Civilization – science and technology, medicine, the arts, constitutionalism, the jury system, free enterprise, literacy, increasing productivity, a rising standard of living, the high status of women -is attributable to one major fact: the West has been transformed by Christianity. True, the Read more