“Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them” (Romans 12:14). Love is the preeminent Christian virtue. Justice, self-control, courage, and wisdom may mark our lives, but without love we are nothing (1 Corinthians 13:2). Our obligation to love is all encompassing. We Christians must love our brothers and sisters in Christ. With all of our family sins and failures and shortcomings, that looms a monumental challenge, and without God’s help, proves insurmountable. But loving our dear Christian brothers and sisters is only the starting line. To finish our lives well our enemies too must be loved and prayed for, and for them, God’s blessings sought. It’s at this point that character faces its severest test. “Bless those…
Read MoreMy friend Craig put me onto Steven Johnson’s The Ghost Map: The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic – and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World. Cholera devastates cities, a lethal enemy that, through the centuries, killed millions. The Ghost Map takes us to 1854 when a cholera epidemic ravaged London’s Soho district, and claimed more than six hundred lives. The death toll would have risen higher had not many anxious citizens fled. The dominant epidemiological paradigm of the day designated cholera an airborne disease, the product of foul air associated with overflowing cesspools and unsanitary living conditions. For several years prior to the outbreak, Dr. John Snow, a renown anesthesiologist, suspected the airborne theory wrong. When…
Read MoreGeorge Washington dressed well. His clothing, he believed, should reflect the dignity of a military and political leader. Slovenly dress demeans both the man and the nation he represents. But Washington was neither a fashion trendsetter nor a follower. He wrote: “A person who is anxious to be a leader of the fashion, or one of the first to follow it, will certainly appear in the eyes of judicious men to have nothing better than a frequent change of dress to recommend him to notice.” Washington’s concern was propriety – what’s appropriate – not fashion. How a Christian leader dresses when performing his duties probably concerns very few. For several decades our society has tracked toward the informal. But if…
Read MoreEffective prayer and compassionate care for others emerges from our own intimate acquaintance with suffering. Only as we face adversity and learn to “rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead” will we learn to pray with understanding and care with sympathy. When Paul wrote the Corinthians, he does not praise God “who enables us to escape from every affliction.” Instead, he assures a broken church: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by…
Read MoreThird Commandment “You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain. 99. What is required in the third Commandment? That we must not by cursing, or by false swearing, nor yet by unnecessary oaths, profane or abuse the name of God; nor even by our silence and connivance be partakers of these horrible sins in others; and in summary, that we use the holy name of God in no other way than with fear and reverence, so that He may be rightly confessed and worshiped by us, and be glorified in all our words and works. 100. Is the profaning of God’s…
Read More“O LORD, we beseech thee, let thy continual pity cleanse and defend thy Church; and, because it cannot continue in safety without thy succour, preserve it evermore by thy help and goodness; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.” (1662 Book of Common Prayer)
Read MoreClick here for tomorrow’s bulletin. MORNING WORSHIP (9:30): Charlie Wingard, preaching: 1 Kings 9-10 ADULT SUNDAY SCHOOL (11:00): 1. READING THE BIBLE BIBLICALLY A study of how to use the structure, genres, and themes of the Bible to read it with more wonder, depth and understanding. Having considered how these aspects are seen throughout Scripture as a whole, we will apply them to reading select books of the Old and New Testaments. 2. INTRODUCTION TO CHRISTIAN ETHICS Using the Westminster Larger Catechism, the class surveys important moral decisions that contemporary Christians face. Issues include the role of God’s law in a believer’s life, the sanctification of the Lord’s day, abortion, capital punishment, end of life issues, sexual purity, fidelity in…
Read MoreThe due observance of [the Christian Sabbath] . . . is a wholesome school of discipline, a means of grace for the people, a safeguard of public morality and religion, a bulwark against infidelity, and a source of immeasurable blessing to the church, the state, and the family. Next to the Church and the Bible, the Lord’s Day is the chief pillar of Christian Society.” Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church , vol. 1 (Eerdmans, 1962, originally published 1858), 479.
Read MoreVarious & Sundry: September 13
Articles and clips of interest I viewed this week: British historian Paul Johnson on “The Glory of the Rule of Law.” Tim Keller on “You Never Marry the Right Person.” Marvin Olasky interviews Rosaria Butterfield, author of The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert. Banner of Truth, which promotes biblical Christianity through splendid books, pamphlets, and its magazine, has a new website. “A grieving father’s words of warning for the young.” J. I. Packer on killing sin through prayer.
Read MoreCharles Hodge on Repentance
Charles Hodge lived a life of remarkable piety and learning, and in Andrew Hoffecker he has a biographer who tells his story well. Here’s Hodge on repentance: Our repentance needs to be repented of, unless it leads us to confession and restitution in cases of private injury; unless it causes us to forsake not merely outward sins, which attract the notice of others, but those which lie concealed in the heart; unless it makes us choose the service of God, as that which is right and congenial, and causes us to live not for ourselves but for him who loved us and gave himself for us. – W. Andrew Hoffecker, Charles Hodge: The Pride of Princeton (P&R: 2011), 224.
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