Tag: jesus
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Church Courts and Civil Courts
When Christians cannot resolve their differences privately, God commands that we turn to the church rather than to the civil courts. Unfortunately, many Christians are unaware of this command or believe that it no longer applies today. Worse yet, many churches ignore this passage and do nothing to help Christians settle their disputes in a…
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Leadership Requires a High Pain Threshold
Edwin Friedman is one of the best authors to read on leadership. In several places, he makes the point that in order to lead well, a leader has to not only raise his own threshold for pain, but his willingness to endure someone else’s pain as well. This is why empathy can be so destructive…
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Ecclesiocentrism Is Not Ecclesiocracy
Ecclesiocentrism is not ecclesiocracy. The church’s authority and centrality derive from her mission to disciple the nation by proclaiming and applying the Word of God to all of life; her access to the heavenly throne room in prayer, which means even if she does not have access to the Oval Office or the royal chamber…
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Notes on Reformation Day, All Saints Day, and the Church Calendar
[This post consists of notes and emails sent out to TPC over the years on this portion of the church calendar that falls at the end of October and the beginning of November.] Every year towards the end of October, Christians begin to debate whether or not it is ok to “celebrate” Halloween. Ultimately, each…
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Work Until the Workday Is Done: A Lesson from Whitefield and Tennent
A summary and application of a story told by Iain Murray in his fine book, The Puritan Hope: George Whitefield was once among a group of pastors and they were discussing the burdens of ministry, how consoling it was to consider that this life would soon be over, and how glorious it would be when…
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Israel in Exile and the Politics of the Kingdom
Some Christians use the motif of Israel’s exile to justify why Christians should not have (or seek) political power and cultural influence. We live in Babylon, so we cannot expect very much transformation of the world around us. We “lose down here,” as the saying goes. There’s no need to fight a “culture war” or…
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Charles Hodge on America’s Christian Founding
“The demands of those who require that religion, and especially Christianity, should be ignored in our national, state, and municipal laws, are not only unreasonable, but they are in the highest degree unjust and tyrannical.” —Charles Hodge — “The proposition that the United States of America are a Christian and Protestant nation, is not so…
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Note on Ecclesiocentric Christian Nationalism: A Discussion in the Early Stages
What is “Christian nationalism”? There are many varieties floating around, but here’s my stab at it. While Stephen Wolfe may have made the label prominent with his book, this is a much wider discussion. Megachurch pastors like Josh Howerton are using the label and defining carefully what they mean by it. Howerton has 25k+ in…
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Notes on Nature
[This is from an email discussion back in 2018.] In the aftermath of Obergefell, I wrote a paper that deals at least in a cursory way with nature, natural law, and sexual perversion. I also explore why appeals to nature are sometimes effective and sometimes not. See pages 2-16 of this essay:http://trinity-pres.net/essays/obergefellandamericaswarongod.pdf About the same…
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FROM THE ARCHIVES: A SHORT NOTE ON THE WILSON/JORDAN REGENERATION CONTROVERSY
I wrote this elsewhere as a footnote in another essay (http://trinity-pres.net/essays/obergefellandamericaswarongod.pdf), but since it islikely to get overlooked, I have pulled it out and turned it into itsown short paper for those who might be interested. The debatebetween Doug Wilson and Jim Jordan over regeneration pits two menwhom I respect and from whom I have…
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