What are the advantages of preaching consecutively, chapter after chapter, all the way through a book of the Bible? There are five reasons…
The essence of Christmas is the mysterious, glorious and profound claim that God, the creator of the heavens and the earth, became a man in the person of Jesus Christ. To this astounding truth one might be compelled to ask: did it have to be this way? Was there any other way for God to redeem us? The second chapter of Hebrews gives us three reasons why God had to become a man:
Next Saturday (April 19, not tomorrow) is Record Store Day. This annual celebration of independent record stores has been taking place since 2007, and gives special attention to the vinyl record, which happens to be the main reason independent records stores are still in business. As music consumption moves away from CDs and increasingly toward MP3 downloads or direct streaming, there has been a movement back toward buying records the old fashioned way. Vinyl sales have been on the increase for the last few years, and show no signs of slowing down.
Originally this was intended to be posted last week, in time for the Thanksgiving holiday, but the Ferguson situation was so prominent that I chose to comment on it instead. So, with the holiday past but still fresh in our minds, the following are things, truths and people for which I am very thankful (in no particular order):
Last week I preached a sermon on the importance of being generous to our local churches, based on 1 Tim. 6:18. The passage does not mention tithing specifically, but certainly one way to be generous to our churches is in committing ourselves to tithing. This undoubtedly created some questions in people’s minds about this practice, which I will try to anticipate here. What are some common questions or objections that Christians often mention about tithing?
While most people are celebrating Halloween today, Protestant Christians should be reminded that today is also Reformation Day. It was on Oct. 31 of the year 1517 that Martin Luther posted his 95 theses to the church door in Wittenburg, Germany, setting forth a string of events that have birthed monumental changes in the church and western culture.
It’s hard to imagine why anyone would be interested, but just in case, below are my 10 favorite movies. Note that I didn’t say, “10 most important movies,” or “10 most influential movies,” or even “10 most Gospel-centered movies.” These are simply 10 movies that had a striking and memorable impact on me personally, and in most cases are movies I have watched multiple times and found to be equally rewarding on repeated viewings.
The end of August marked my 10-year anniversary of serving as pastor at New Life Presbyterian Church in Yorktown. As I reflect on the mistakes I’ve made and the fruit that has been borne from my ministry, I offer five things that I’ve learned about pastoral ministry during the time God has graciously given to me to serve as shepherd of God’s people. This of course is not all there is to be said about pastoral ministry; these are simply things that stand out as lessons that are easy to overlook:
It is very common for evangelical Christians to believe in the doctrine of inerrancy when it comes to their view of Scripture. In fact, some might say that you must believe in inerrancy to be a full-blown evangelical. But evangelicals are very divided when it comes to the doctrines of Calvinism. There are many evangelicals who strongly object to the high view of sovereignty contained in the system of doctrine called Calvinism. My contention is that you basically are a Calvinist if you believe in inerrancy.
Reviewing a new U2 album is a difficult task. The reason is because U2 is almost like a brother or child to me. I don’t have a son, but I can imagine what it must be like to evaluate your own son’s performance at some task: he’s your son, so you want to think the best of him, and you want him to excel, but since he’s your son, you also expect a little more out of him. Maybe sometimes it’s hard to be entirely pleased?
