Archive for category: Godly Disciplines

Throw away your index cards of Bible verses and start implementing orality in the memorization—and especially retention!—of God’s Word. Listening to God’s Word is the best way to memorize and retain Scripture. Everyone has smart phones today so this should be easy. 1. Download the Griffen iTalk Recorder app (or something comparable). 2. Before you throw away your index cards

There are a lot of books and curriculum to help Christian parents with teaching our children the content of Bible and the doctrines found therein. And for quite some time, I’ve been looking for some resources that meet my expectations. For the most part, I have not been satisfied with what I’ve seen (perhaps I’m simply not looking in the

   Tracking down correspondence between the Reformers is quite a task, I have found. Nonetheless, it is useful to read the letters between the Reformers to get a sense of how they esteemed each other. Sometimes they were brutally honest with how they felt about each other. Sometimes they were more brutal than honest. But most times, they esteemed each other

The Power of Christ’s Resurrection This then is what the apostle means by the “Power of Christ’s resurrection,” and this is what we are as much concerned experimentally to know, as that He rose at all. Without this, though we may be moralists, though we may be civilized, good-natured people, yet we are no Christians. For he is not a

Charles Spurgeon reminds us that we must always be mindful of our surroundings: She is the church militant here below, and both in suffering and in service she is made to prove that she is in an enemy’s country. She is contending for the truth against error, for the light against darkness: till the day break and the shadows flee

In contrast to the modern Church’s ever increasingly fad-driven, relevancy-craving, world acceptance-seeking, thirst for impressive numbers of people even at the cost of truth and genuine shepherding of the flock, Martyn Lloyd-Jones understood long ago that our ambition should be to be pleasing to Christ: “The glory of the gospel is that when the Church is absolutely different from the

Our obligation to love, honor, and obey any being, is in proportion to his loveliness, honorableness, and authority; for that is the very meaning of the words. When we say any one is very lovely, it is the same as to say, that he is one very much to be loved. Or if we say such a one is more

The gift of God Himself in the Person of His Son is the greatest gift mankind will ever know. May the recognition of that gift cause us all to desire to be pleasing to Him today, and every day of our lives.

It’s about that time of the year when we are introduced to creative ways to read our Bible from cover to cover for the next calender year (did you do it this year?). Instead, I would like to suggest that you take each day of next year to contemplate each unit of the gospels. Did you know there are conveniently

My favorite biographical lecture from John Piper is “Martin Luther: Lessons from His Life and Labor.” Piper hones in on Luther’s intense study habits, making application for contemporary pastors. At one point in the lecture Piper explains that for Luther, the touchstone for serious Biblical study is (1) Prayer (2) Meditation, and (3) Trials. It is the latter that he

Tyndale was taken to the Vilvorde Prison near Brussels where he was kept in solitary confinement. From the sixteen months that Tyndale spent in prison, only one piece of his correspondence has survived: a letter asking for warmer clothing because of the cold and damp, a lamp so he could see in the dark and Hebrew books so he could

announced that henceforth he would no longer restrict himself to the prescribed biblical passages selected to be read for each Sunday of the year, but instead would preach on the entire gospel of Matthew from cover to cover with the Greek text in front of him upon the pulpit. The modern generation can scarcely reconstruct the excitement which such

This morning I had my remote video monitoring program running, which allows me to keep an eye on our security cameras at our offices. I had it moving from camera to camera every three seconds, which meant that each image would be viewed, and refreshed, about every 40 seconds or so. I noticed something very interesting. The first image that

   There is no possible way I will finish this in two services tomorrow. Hebrews 6 has vaulted way up in my “favorite chapters” list after preparing to preach on it at PRBC. Such promises! Such exhortations! Just awesome.

Lo! th’incarnate God, ascended, Pleads the merit of his blood; Venture on him, venture wholly, Let no other trust intrude: None but Jesus, None but Jesus, None but Jesus Can do helpless sinners good. We sang this hymn this morning right before I led in the pastoral prayer (hymn #393 in the Baptist Edition of the Trinity Hymnal). I re-read

May you and yours have a blessed day of thanksgiving and praise. I would especially like to express my thanks today to DK, GM, and CR, all up in Canada, for all they have done. Over the past year all those who have provided assistance for me in my work through the Ministry Resource list have more than ever banished

Calvin wrote: With regard to what Moses records, that Pharaoh celebrated his birthday by a great feast, we know that this custom has always been in use, not only among kings, but also among plebeian men. Nor is the custom to be condemned, if only men would keep the right end in view; namely, that of giving thanks unto God

   Rachel Barkey (nee Sawer) went home to her Lord on July 2, 2009 at 37 years of age. Rachel is survived by her husband Neil and her children Quinn and Kate, parents Ben and Cathy Sawer, brother David (Johanna) Sawer and sister Andrea Sawer.       There are so many worthless things that take up our days. Put some of them aside

   An unusual set of videos that I hope will be of encouragement to some. I went 90 seconds long, so…had to break it up into two parts. Hence the double posting.

   I was just chatting with my brothers and sisters in #prosapologian, and I mentioned that at this time of year, as we contemplate the passing of another year, I could not provide better advice than this: that each and every believer should consider the past year in the light of these divine words: Therefore we also have as our ambition,

   Recently I cited five good reasons to own a gospel synopsis. The fifth reason was, Read a synopsis in one year by reading one pericope every day! By coincidence, the synopsis has 367 pericopes (That is, all four gospels combined contain 367 units.) And next year is a leap year so if you read one pericope a

   This was preached at our conference in Orlando in 2006. Words to ponder.    Yes, Lord willing and Rich learns how to squeeze 36 hours into 24, we will have all of these great presentations available in the near future.

   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