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Before the end of the year, I hope to have reread Calvin’s Institutes. This morning I completed Book 1, which concludes with Calvin’s teaching on God’s providence. To aid me in my readings, I am using David Calhoun’s fine devotional volume on the Institutes. I found these words especially helpful: The doctrine of providence for Calvin is not so much a matter of explanation of what happens as it is a confession of faith. It does not answer all our questions, but it enables us to live without answers until the time comes when we will live without questions. Calvin’s understanding of the Bible’s teaching on providence has immensely practical application. “Gratitude of mind for the favorable outcome of things, patience…
Read MoreToday many Western Christians celebrate Ascension Day, an annual reminder that forty days after his resurrection Christ ascended into heaven (Acts 1:1-11). As a Presbyterian minister, I am not bound by any church calendar. Still, the day prompts me to reflect on Christ’s ascension. When in the pulpit the following Lord’s Day, I preach on the ascension of Christ and on Pentecost the next week. Like the incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection, Christ’s ascension and Pentecost are unrepeatable events in the stunning history of God’s mighty work to redeem sinners. The Heidelberg Catechism asks: “How does Christ’s ascension into heaven benefit us?” First, he pleads our cause in heaven in the presence of his Father. Second, we have our own flesh…
Read MoreToday many Western Christians celebrate Ascension Day, an annual reminder that forty days after his resurrection Christ ascended into heaven (Acts 1:1-11). As a Presbyterian minister, I am not bound by any church calendar. Still, the day prompts me to reflect on Christ’s ascension. When in the pulpit the following Lord’s Day, I preach on the ascension of Christ and on Pentecost the next week. Like the incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection, Christ’s ascension and Pentecost are unrepeatable events in the stunning history of God’s mighty work to redeem sinners. The Heidelberg Catechism asks: “How does Christ’s ascension into heaven benefit us?” First, he pleads our cause in heaven in the presence of his Father. Second, we have our own flesh…
Read MoreI am thrilled about the forthcoming publication of Francis J.Grimké’s “Meditations on Preaching” by Log College Press. In the third volume of his collected works, Grimké (1852-1937) spoke frankly about the minister’s moral character: A minister who is but poorly equipped intellectually, educationally, but who is of good moral character, and of real piety, is greatly to be preferred to the man, however well equipped intellectually and educationally, but who is of questionable character, whose ways are crooked. The one may have to be tolerated, the other should never be: the ministry of the one may result in good, of the other only harm can come. Such a minister discredits the gospel, and becomes an obstacle in the way of…
Read MoreJohn Johnson lectures on pastoral leadership in African American churches. His presentation is full of informative history and practical exhortations to loving and courageous pastoral leadership. Pastor Johnson has served St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church in Starkville, Mississippi for 17 years. On Easter he preaches his first sermon as the newly elected pastor of Antioch Missionary Baptist Church in Houston, Texas.
Read MoreThe difference between speaking out against sin and abhorring sin, from John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress: Talkative: “What difference is there between crying out against, and abhorring of Sin? Faithful: Oh! a great deal: A man may cry out against Sin, of Policy, but he cannot abhor it but by virtue of a godly antipathy against it: I have heard many cry out again Sin in the Pulpit, who yet can abide it well enough in the Heart, House, and Conversation. – John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress. 1678 (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2005), 89-90
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