Genevan pastor Simon Goulart (1543-1628) offers this advice to a friend: 1. Live with other people as if God were watching. Speak with God as if others were listening. 2. Endure with greatest patience what you are not able to change and walk with God (by whose authority all things occur) without complaining. Evil and wretched is the person who follows after the commander of Hell. 3. In times of activity as much as in periods of rest, all dimensions of life ought to be beautiful. 4. Commit your way to God. Hope in him and he will do it. Goulart adds: “[Only] eternal things endure.” – from Scott M. Manetsch, Calvin’s Company of Pastors: Pastoral Care and the Emerging…
Read MoreLynne and I hosted last night’s dinner for the RTS Jackson Summer Institute for Biblical Languages (SIBL). We had the privilege of sharing a meal with students and their families before intensive studies in Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic, and Latin begin. SIBL provides thorough, intensive introductions to the biblical languages and Latin during an eight week course of study. (Photos courtesy of Adam Parker.)
Read MoreLast night I finished reading David Robertson’s Awakening: The Life & Ministry of Robert Murray McCheyne, a fine account of the life of the godly and often quoted 19th century Scottish minister. I am personally indebted to McCheyne. For most of my adult life I’ve used and recommended his Bible Reading Calendar. I suppose there are other good plans for reading scripture, but McCheyne’s has served me well.
Read MoreMemorial Day weekend is a fitting time to finish reading The Guns at Last Light: The War in Western Europe, 1944-1945, the final volume of Rick Atkinson’s deservedly praised Liberation Trilogy. The author makes extensive use of servicemen’s letters home. None are more heartwrenching than those that proved to be last words to beloved mothers and fathers, wives, girlfriends, and children. One of many such stories: With less than six weeks remaining in the war, an American B-24 was shot down near Wesel, Germany. “The eight dead crewmen included First Lieutenant Earle C. Cheek of Missouri, the navigator, a ‘genial friend a good companion and a lovable comrade,’ according to the unit chaplain. Cheek had survived many harrowing sorties…
Read MoreJohn Stott reflects on the life of Charles Simeon, one of my heroes of Christian ministry. In 1985 I ran across Simeon’s name for the first time while reading Stott’s Between Two Worlds. He referenced Simeon several times, so I bought Hugh Evan Hopkins Charles Simeon of Cambridge to learn more. Later I read the fine biographies of Moule and Carus, and many of Simeon’s sermons. During his 54 years at Holy Trinity Church in Cambridge (1782-1836) some 1100 future ministers sat under his ministry. Distinguished historian Thomas Macauley observed that his influence was greater than any English bishop or archbishop. Any student preparing for ministry will benefit by studying the life of this remarkable pastor and preacher.
Read MoreAt RTS I’m preparing to teach again on Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress, and am finding Derek Thomas’s lectures immensely enjoyable and edifying. Years ago I was introduced to Alexander Whyte’s magnificent Bunyan Characters in The Pilgrim’s Progress. Any reader wanting faithful guides as he journeys through Bunyan need not look further than Thomas and Whyte.
Read More“There is a third category [of hearers in the Parable of the Sower]. It is made up of those who not only hear the Word but also ‘hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience’ (Luke 8:15). Hearing the Word is not hard; holding it fast is a different matter. Here are the people who cut their lives to its truths, who hear in its words the voice of eternity, indeed the voice of their incarnate and resurrected Savior speaking. “In fact, there is nothing quite so cheering, so invigorating, as to be with people like this. They are people whose eyes are wide open to the shadows and pains of life, but they…
Read MoreEncouraging words from Herman Bavinck on faith: “[Faith] opens our heart to the grace of God, to communion with Christ, to the power of the Holy Spirit, and thereby enables us to do great things. Faith breaks all self-reliance and fastens on to God’s promise. It allows the law to stand in all its grandeur and refuses to lower the moral ideal, but also refrains from any attempt, by observing it, to find life and peace; it seizes upon God’s mercy and relies on the righteousness and holiness accomplished in Christ on behalf of humans. It fosters humility, dependence, and trust and grants comfort, peace, and joy through the Holy Spirit; it generates gratitude in our hearts for the benefits…
Read MoreAlexander Whyte on prayer: “When reading and meditation and prayer do once begin to come in on a man, they make great inroads both upon his hours of work, and his hours of recreation, and even upon his hours of sleep. It is not that the Hearer of prayer has any need of our hours… He has always plenty of time. He inhabits eternity. He is always waiting to be gracious. It is we who need time to prepare our hearts to seek God. And it takes some men a long time, and a retired, and an uninterrupted time to get their minds and their hearts into the true frame for prayer and for the presence of God… As life…
Read MoreLORD’S DAY 5 Question 12. Since then, by the righteous judgment of God, we deserve temporal and eternal punishment, is there no way by which we may escape that punishment, and be again received into favour? Answer: God will have his justice satisfied: and therefore we must make this full satisfaction, either by ourselves, or by another. Question 13. Can we ourselves then make this satisfaction? Answer: By no means; but on the contrary we daily increase our debt. Question 14. Can there be found anywhere, one, who is a mere creature, able to satisfy for us? Answer: None; for, first, God will not punish any other creature for the sin which man has committed; and further, no mere creature…
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