To RTS Jackson Students: Due to weather conditions the campus is CLOSED today, Thursday, March 5.
Read MorePolitics and the Pulpit
A point to ponder from 18th century British statesman, member of Parliament and political thinker, Edmund Burke: “. . . Politics and the pulpit are terms that have little agreement. No sound ought to be heard in the church but the healing voice of Christian charity. The cause of civil liberty and civil government gains as little as that of religion by this confusion of duties. Those who quit their proper character, to assume what does not belong to them, are, for the greater part, ignorant both of the character they leave, and of the character they assume. Wholly unacquainted with the world in which they are so fond of meddling, and inexperienced in all its affairs, on which they…
Read More“If you see the grace of God working in your life, and if you recognize material blessings that have come your way as a consequence, do not forget to thank Him. It is sad when there is nothing for which we feel grateful to God, but it is serious when there is something and we fail to show gratitude, and it is tragic when we are so busy asking for more that we forget to thank Him for what we have received.” – William Still, Letters of William Still (Banner of Truth, 1984), pp. 34-35
Read MoreA Prayer for the Lord’s Day, March 1 (based on Psalm 27)
FATHER OF LIGHT and fountain of all goodness, be helpful unto us in time of our affliction: and when we are in greatest danger, hide not thy face from us; yea, whatsoever thing fall unto us, strengthen our hearts, that we may have a continual hope of all the good things, which thou hast promised to us, through Jesus Christ our Lord. AMEN. – Prayers on the Psalms from the Scottish Psalter of 1595 (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 2010), 58.
Read MoreObstinacy and Determination: Know the Difference!
Critical to leadership is knowing the difference between determination and obstinacy. Often no more than a razor’s edge separates the two. Richard Brookhiser explains: “A weakness is the absence of a good quality; a flaw is the presence of a bad one. Everyone has flaws, and no one is ever rid of them all. . . . “[T]here are projects, or strategies, that should not be carried through, because they are mistaken or hopeless. Obstinacy is persisting beyond all reason. . . . “Obstinacy is the brother of determination. There is no easy way to tell them apart; in the heat of the moment, they can look and feel the same. But when the moment lengthens and lengthens, it becomes time…
Read MoreRTS’s Company of Pastors – The Bench Is Deep
RTS has veteran pastors with many years of experience who offer beneficial counsel to men preparing for ministry. Today Dr. Bill Barcley spent time with my preaching class fielding questions on the preparation and delivery of sermons. Bill is an adjunct professor of New Testament at RTS Charlotte and senior pastor of Sovereign Grace Presbyterian Church. In the 1990s, Dr. Barcley, Dr. Miles Van Pelt, and I served together on the church staff of First Presbyterian Church in Ipswich, Massachusetts.
Read MoreCalamitous Freedom
“The idea that freedom is merely the ability to act upon one’s whims is surely very thin and hardly begins to capture the complexities of human existence; a man whose appetite is his law strikes us not as liberated but enslaved. And when such a narrowly conceived freedom is made the touchstone of public policy, a dissolution of society is bound to follow. No culture that makes publicly sanctioned self-indulgence its highest good can long survive: a radical egotism is bound to ensue, in which any limitations upon personal behavior are experienced as infringements of basic rights. Distinctions between the important and the trivial, between the freedom to criticize received ideas and the freedom to take LSD, are precisely…
Read MoreI am grateful to Dr. Bill Wymond, Minister of Music and Worship at First Presbyterian Church in Jackson, who today in my Theology of Worship class gave his first of three lectures on church music and hymnody. His learning, enthusiasm, and experience make his instruction a valuable resource to men preparing to lead God’s people in worship.
Read MoreCalvin: Waiting on God with Patience and Peseverance
Yesterday I finished reading Bruce Gordon’s masterful biography of John Calvin. The highest praise I can give Calvin is that it compares positively with my two favorite biographies, Peter Brown’s Augustine of Hippo: A Biography and George Marsden’s Jonathan Edwards: A Life. Calvin was a towering figure of his age. But above all Calvin was a pastor, his heart attuned to the realities of life in God’s persecuted church. Gordon observes that “Resignation to fate and delusions of perfection were equally abhorrent to Calvin. God’s providence is an excuse for neither inaction nor wickedness; it encourages joy among the faithful, and fortifies them to face the hardships of the world, but it is not an inoculation. The Gospel teaches God’s everlasting kindness…
Read MoreA Prayer for the Lord’s Day, February 22 (based on Psalm 25)
GOOD AND GRACIOUS GOD, who desirest nothing but the health and salvation of them that trust in thee, extend thy goodness and infinite mercies upon us thy poor servants, and put away all our iniquities, that we, being governed by thy Holy Spirit, may walk uprightly in thy holy commandments, without any wavering; that in the end we may enjoy the bliss obtained for us by thy Son, Christ Jesus. AMEN. – Prayers on the Psalms from the Scottish Psalter of 1595 (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 2010), 57.
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