Click 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.
Read More“Wealth gained hastily will dwindle, but whoever gathers little by little will increase it” (Proverbs 13:11). Hastily acquired wealth can disappear as quickly as a federal budget surplus. A lottery winner hits the jackpot, wins a large fortune, and relaxes, ready to glide through life without a financial care in the world. But his “good luck” doesn’t last. Within a few years his relationships are in shambles, his fortune gone. Likewise an inheritance launches a young man on a spending rampage. Within a matter of months he ends up with as little as he began, and for the remainder of his life, he’s haunted by a once in a lifetime opportunity squandered away. The sad failure of both men is…
Read MoreWestminster Home Groups
Several Westminster small groups meet this fall The group I lead meets on the 2nd and 4th Thursdays of the month at the home of Matt and Rebecca Harness. A 6:00 p.m. dinner will be followed by a time of prayer, and a Bible study and discussion about what it means to imitate Christ. Childcare will be provided at the Harness home. We start this Thursday, September 12. If you have questions, please call Matt, Rebecca, or me. We would love to have you join us.
Read MoreI never knew my grandfather, George Thomas “Tom” Wingard, Sr. He died eleven years before I was born. I always enjoyed listening to my Dad talk about his father, a man of strong Christian character. Tom Wingard was born August 26, 1892 at Elmdale, the Wingard family farm in Montgomery County, Alabama. On December 27, 1922, he married Dorinda Thompson (1894-1980). They met at a church fair. My grandmother baked a pie he liked, and life together began. This picture of my grandmother is from the late 1940s. Life was hard for my Grandfather and Grandmother, especially during the Great Depression. In 1939 they moved from Montgomery County to Forrest City, Arkansas, my Grandmother’s hometown. My Uncle John provided me…
Read More“What our contemporary writers often do not understand is why our Western experience washes away at our own personal reality. Of course, our Western societies are consumer-driven, suffused with change, large and anonymous in how they work. They favor – indeed, almost demand – a self that is flexible, malleable, light, and free, that can move when movement is called for and adapt when adaptation is called for. A flexible biography, a self that can remake itself, shift and change, refurbish itself, reinvent itself, reimagine itself, is the counterpart to our market-driven economy with its constantly changing conditions, demands, and opportunities. This, of course, makes a mockery of what was once thought to be a virtue – the ideas of…
Read More96. What does God require in the second Commandment? That we in no way make any image of God, nor worship Him in any other way than He has commanded us in His Word. 97. May we not make any image at all? God may not and cannot be imaged in any way; as for creatures, though they may indeed be imaged, yet God forbids the making or keeping of any likeness of them, either to worship them or to serve God by them. 98. But may not pictures be tolerated in churches as books for the people? No, for we should not be wiser than God, who will not have His people taught by dumb idols, but by the…
Read More“KEEP, we beseech thee, O Lord, thy Church with thy perpetual mercy: and, because the frailty of man without thee cannot but fall, keep us ever by thy help from all things hurtful, and lead us to all things profitable to our salvation; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. – 1662 Book of Common Prayer
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