You shall have no other gods before me. Exodus 20:3 For your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is his name; and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer, the God of the whole earth he is called. Isaiah 54:5 I love wedding days. No other days are like them. Promises made, tokens of love exchanged, and two lives changed forever. With two words the bride gives herself away. She looks into her husband’s face as the minister asks: “Will you take him as your husband and live together as God has ordained? Will you love him . . . and, forsaking all others, be faithful to him as long as you both shall live?” “I will,” she promises.…
Read MoreAn encouraging day at Reformed Theological Seminary, Jackson. Dr. Carl Ellis, Senior Fellow of the African American Leadership Initiative and Provost’s Professor of Theology and Culture, preached in chapel on “What’s in a Name?” from Ezekiel 36:16-32. During the lunch hour, Dr. Ellis met with prospective students before delivering an afternoon preaching lecture and participating in a discussion of Francis Grimké’s Meditations on Preaching.
Read MoreMegan Hill, Contentment: Seeing God’s Goodness. P&R Publishing, 2018 Full disclosure: my evaluation of Megan Hill’s Contentment is hardly unbiased. I have long admired both her and her family. In the early 1990s, her Dad welcomed me to the New England Reformed Fellowship. Megan’s writing talent is exceptional, a valuable gift to God’s church. For years I have read with profit her mother-daughter blog, Sunday Women, and her other posts at Christianity Today and The Gospel Coalition. Megan is also the author of Praying Together: The Priority and Privilege of Prayer in Our Homes, Communities, and Churches. When I moved to the Jackson area in 2014, Megan and her husband, Rob, warmly welcomed me to their church and home. Biases…
Read MoreJoin us on Wednesday, September 5, at Reformed Theological Seminary at 11 a.m. Dr. Carl Ellis, Senior Fellow of the African American Leadership Initiative and Provost’s Professor of Theology and Culture, will preach on “What’s in a Name?” from Ezekiel 36:16-32.
Read More“The present form of this world is passing away.” 1 Corinthians 7:31 The Smartest Guys in the Room chronicles the fall of corporate giant Enron. In one revealing scene, the company’s CEO, Jeffrey Skilling, is contemplating resigning. The years of criminal misconduct, lying, and falsifying financial records have caught up with him and his company. Stock princes plummet. Disaster looms, and he knows it. Into his office walks Ken Lay, Enron’s chairman of the board. What pressing issue is on his mind? In his hands are fabric swatches for the company’s new $45 million corporate jet. Which does the CEO prefer?* There’s a lesson here: Don’t be consumed by the trivial when you are surrounded by issues of monumental consequence.…
Read MoreJohn Calvin was right when he pegged the human heart an idol factory. We can manufacture a stream of objects in which we put our trust instead of the true and living God. Matthew Henry shows us just how easy it is to multiply our idols: “Pride makes a god of self, covetousness makes a god of money, sensuality makes a god of the belly; whatever is esteemed or loved, feared or served, delighted in or depended on, more than God, that (whatever it is) we do in effect make a god of.”* ______ *Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, vol. 1 (Macdonald, orig. published 1706), 358-359.
Read MoreFor many years First Presbyterian Church of Yazoo City has enthusiastically supported Thomas Christian Academy. Today I caught up with founder and head of school, Pastor Charles Thomas. He stands for the best in Christian education – strong academics, biblical instruction, and the development of godly character. Classes start next week, and Pastor Thomas and his team were hard at work today getting the school ready.
Read MoreHow valuable is theological education? 19th century professor and pastor Samuel Miller writes: “Nothing can be plainer than that ignorance, or small and indigested knowledge is, next to the want of piety, one of the most serious defects in a candidate for the sacred office. . . . No Church, therefore, which neglects the proper education of her ministers, can be considered as faithful, either to her own most vital interests, or to the honour of her divine Head and Lord.” ____ James M. Garretson, An Able and Faithful Ministry: Samuel Miller and the Pastoral Office (Reformation Heritage Books, 2014), 78.
Read More“This is our wisdom: duly to feel how much our salvation cost the Son of God.” John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill; trans. Ford Lewis Battles; vol. 1 (Louisville, KY: Westminster Press, 1960), 519.
Read MoreHow Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds
How sweet the name of Jesus sounds in a believer’s ear! It soothes our sorrows, heals our wounds, and drives away our fear.* I thought of this hymn yesterday while reading Calvin’s Institutes: The name of Jesus is not only light but also food; it is also oil, without which all food of the soul is dry; it is salt, without whose seasoning whatever is set before us is insipid; finally, it is honey in the mouth, melody in the ear, rejoicing in the heart, and at the same time medicine. Every discourse in which his name is not spoken is without savor.** _______ * John Newton **Bernard of Clairvaux in John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T.…
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