Archive for category: Godly Disciplines

   We enter this week upon a period of intense teaching and ministry. I leave this week for Seattle. We will be worshipping at a local Reformed Baptist Church the Lord’s Day morning, and Sunday evening I will be starting the class and conference on the Cross, which will then continue on the Mercury Monday.    I am truly looking forward to

   “in the defense and confirmation of the gospel” (Phil. 1:7). As you go to gather with the saints this day, aren’t you thankful that despite all the voices that cry out “you can’t know the gospel! It is too difficult, too obscure!” that we do, in fact, possess the life-changing truth that God has saved in Jesus Christ, and that

It was with sadness today (Wednesday, Sept 5th), that I received two items of news that caused me not only to pause for prayer, but also to reflect. The first came as a complete shock. Arif Khan and his wife, missionaries to Pakistan where Arif pastored a Reformed Baptist church, were shot dead last week. The circumstances of this incident

   You won’t hear Dave Hunt preaching on this text anytime soon. Then again, even if he did, it would only involve its citation followed by, “But, of course, the Calvinists are wrong to cite this, because over here in Exodus we know…” and that would be the last you would hear of this text. In any case, its lack of

And they sang a new song, saying, “Worthy are You to take the book and to break its seals; for You were slain, and purchased for God with Your blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. 10 You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to our God; and they will reign upon the

It’s been a few weeks since the last Scripture memorization text, so I thought it would be good to allow Jesus’ words, spoken in direct response to those who objected to His teachings regarding faith and disbelief, speak again: “No one can come to Me, unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on

I have found this text to speak volumes in our day: For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not in cleverness of speech, so that the cross of Christ would not be made void. (1 Corithians 1:17, NASB) Briefly, please consider what Paul is saying concerning how we preach the gospel. It is possible

I apologize for having missed last week. I leave for the UK in two weeks and trying to get everything accomplished and ready–well, hey, even Pyromaniac has gone to the “team blog” approach (yeah, I’ve asked some of the guys who write stuff for this blog, but they all fear my red pen too much, so I muddle on alone!),

So far we have taken to memory a wonderful promise of the perfection of the work of the promised Messiah; we have also helped to prepare ourselves for almost every apologetic encounter by familiarizing ourselves with one of the key passages where the Word testifies to its own nature as God-breathed revelation. Next I thought we would consider a passage

In our working on the key text in 2 Timothy 3:16-17, we wish to add in this second week the Greek term qeo,pneustoj (theopneustos, thay-AH-noo-stos, or, if you are really picky and like spitting on folks, thay-AHP-noo-stos). I highly recommend memorizing the term so that you can explain why it does not, in fact, mean “inspired” in the common usage

Sorry for missing getting this up on Monday. We have been fighting the weakness of the flesh in my home for the past few days, and we still are, I’m afraid. So I’m a little slow getting back up to speed.     I will have to be brief and, well, obvious, this week. What I mean by that is there

Matthew 1:22-23 22 Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet: 23 “BEHOLD, THE VIRGIN SHALL BE WITH CHILD AND SHALL BEAR A SON, AND THEY SHALL CALL HIS NAME IMMANUEL,” which translated means, “GOD WITH US.” Modern men, chained so tightly to this earth, to this material realm, with their implicit

Turning my thoughts toward this coming Lord’s Day (I will be preaching at PRBC in the morning), the Christmas observance, and our memorization passage, I wanted to note some of the key truths found in the passage, again as a way of helping to “fix” the text in our minds. And Joseph her husband, being a righteous man and not

This week we celebrate, in a more focused way, the incredible claim (and it is incredible when you think about it! Christianity is radical!) that the Second Person of the Trinity, the eternal Son, entered into human existence, born of a virgin, born under the law, to redeem those under the curse of the law. I know I am utterly

This week we are memorizing the Greek term qeo,thtoj (theotetos, pronounced thay-AH-tay-toss), translated in the NASB as “Deity.” I noted last time that the King James Version renders it “godhead,” which is not only ambiguous, but since the KJV elsewhere renders other less strong terms by the same word (e.g., Romans 1:20), can be quite confusing. The Bauer, Arndt, Gingrich

Finally home and have a few moments to do what I had hoped to do numerous times over the weekend…     The artificial chapter division between chapters 1 and 2 is actually fairly well placed. Paul is concerned about the infant churches, and expresses that concern in 2:1-2. He has a “struggle” on their behalf (avgw/na, agwna), and for all

As we seek to honor God by committing passages of His Word to memory I feel it is very, very important to understand the contexts and purposes of the passages we are memorizing. Rote memorization without a knowledge of the context can often lead to a misuse of those texts, and in my personal experience, I have seen many objections

I’ve gotten a few e-mails about memorization products. One, the Memorize! program from Laridian, I already had, but had forgotten to re-install after I upgraded from my Palm T3 to my T5. It works quite nicely and, if you have Laridian’s Bible software installed, getting the verses set up is pretty easy (I personally use Olive Tree and PalmBible+, so

Repetition is the mother of memory, we have been rightly told, and such is the case with the memorization of Scripture. I have never bought into all the memory systems out there that use various visualizations and tricks to remember things. Maybe I should, as I am not good with names, though I’m pretty good with faces. Anyway, I memorize

Discipline is not the first word people think of today when they think of the Christian life. Who wants discipline? We want freedom, happiness, success…but discipline? And yet, every generation of Christians in the past has come to learn the same lesson: the path to “success” (better, fulfillment, contentment, godliness) is the path of discipline. I could offer you lots