Category: Uncategorized
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On the Reformation
Jaroslav Pelikan gives an interesting perspective on the Reformation: “In fact, recent research on the Reformation entitles us to sharpen it and to say that the Reformation began because the reformers were too catholic in the midst of a church that had forgotten its catholicity. That generalization applies particularly to Luther and to some of…
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4/28/24 Sermon Follow-Up: Justification by (fill in the blank)
Justification by (fill in the blank). My sermon was based on the premise that justification is not just a Christian concern, but an innate human concern. All people operate out of a desire for justification — to be declared in the right, to be innocent, to be validated, to be vindicated. A great deal of human…
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Tribute to a Black Dog
“I wish good dogs never got gray and old…” – Riley Green “That’s putting a lot of trust in a dog,” White said. “Right now,” Sanderson said bleakly, “a dog’s all we got left to put any trust in”….. I don’t guess a dog understands many words, but I think he can listen and tell…
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Lenten Exhortations (2024) and Other Notes
A couple of recent exhortations….. Lent is the season of the church year that highlights spiritual warfare. Jesus came as a great warrior. He fought our battles for us. He won the victory over Satan and his temptations in the wilderness. He won the victory over sin and death at the cross. He has trampled…
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Celebrating a Patriarchal Eucharist
This article was first published the Fight Laugh Feast magazine. It’s been said that in the Lord’s Supper, the church practices life the way it really ought to be lived. When we do the Lord’s Supper right, we do life right. When the church is what she is supposed to be, gathered around the Lord’s…
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Lenten Meditation (Revised)
Jesus said the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath (Mk. 2:27). If the God-ordained Sabbath was instituted for the sake of human needs, this is all the more true of the church’s calendar, which does not derive from divine ordinance, but from the church’s reflection on God’s redemptive work in history…
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Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday (Revised)
What is Shrove Tuesday? To be frank, Shrove Tuesday is just an excuse for a church party — after all, pancakes need no theological justification! But it does have a long and venerable history. Shrove Tuesday is an 800+ year old tradition in English speaking churches. It marks the end of the festive season of…
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Death as “Frenemy:” Beating the Grim Reaper’s Scythe into a Plowshare
This is an old article article, being republished for the blog. We spend a lot of time in the church talking about what it means to live like a Christian. But what does it mean to die like a Christian? If we are to follow Christ in life, what does it mean for us to follow him in death…
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Psalms 127-128 Sermon Follow Up: Who Is the Blessed Man?
This is a follow up to my sermon for men who want to hear more on their duties as husbands and fathers. My sermon Sunday on the pair of family psalms, Psalm 127 and Psalm 128, deserves a bit more comment. I will focus here especially on Psalm 128. (Video of the sermon is available here —…
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Quotebook #2
“Christianity, and nothing else, is the ultimate foundation of liberty, conscience, human rights, and democracy, the benchmarks of western civilization. To this day, we have no other options [besides Christianity]. We continue to nourish ourselves from this source. Everything else is postmodern chatter.” – Jurgen Habermas, a German philosopher/theologian A person who has lived in…
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