Blaise Pascal (d. 1662) is one of those Christian authors I can read over and over.  His writing has a depth to it that is both profound and thought-provoking – two things that are not so common in much of today’s Christian literature.  Here’s a section of...

 Hezekiah was one of those kings of Judah that really sticks out in the biblical record.  And he sticks out in a good way.  The author of Kings, the Chronicler, and the prophecies of Isaiah contain quite a bit of information on king Hezekiah. His story, reign, and literary references...

 Herman Bavinck wrote the following words around 1890 in Holland, but they are quite relevant to our situation in the United States in the year 2019:

Humility, as is rightly said, is the garment that always suits us… Humility must be our home and traveling and wedding and mourning...

 This is a re-blog from February 2011.

As I mentioned a few weeks back, this is a great book: Set Apart by R. Kent Hughes.  I liked his section where he gave six anti-church trends among American evangelicals (found in chapter 10).  Here they are.

1) Hitchhiker Christians:  These...

 So far I’m very much enjoying Eugene Peterson’s memoir, The Pastor.   While I don’t always agree with Peterson’s views, I do appreciate and benefit from his writing.  His memoir, The Pastor, is full of stories, wisdom, insight, missteps, and...

  “What does it mean to serve God?” Luther asked in a sermon on Matthew 6:24-34.  He answered his own question echoing Scripture: it means listening to Christ, accepting the gospel, and obeying God.  If we are not obeying God we are not serving him no matter how religious...

 Charles Finney is well known for his part in the 19th century American revivals.  Obviously,  Finney and these revivals are major topics that many books have covered. But it is worth mentioning that Finney did write a systematic theology where one can learn what he himself taught....

 It is true that in some churches sermons are often simply [dry] lectures in theology.  While good theology is a good thing, a sermon should not just be a lecture in theology. A sermon is theological, to be sure, but a sermon also involves the will, the emotions, and of course, the heart....

 Here’s a great excerpt from the first chapter in Bavinck’s Our Reasonable Faith (aka The Wonderful Works of God or Magnalia Dei). I really like how Bavinck integrates Augustine and Pascal in his biblical reflections:

The conclusion, therefore, is that of Augustine,...

 Some people say that the doctrine of election is a hindrance to evangelism.  I do admit that a hyper-calvinist view of election is a hindrance to evangelism.  However, a historic Reformed, biblical view of election does not get in the way of evangelism at all.  Martin Bucer&nbsp...

Isaiah 25:7-8 is an awesome prophetic promise: “On this mountain he [Yahweh] will destroy the burial shroud, the shroud over all the peoples, the sheet covering all the nations; ⁸ he will destroy death forever. The Lord God will wipe away the tears from...

 In the last months of his life, while he was in prison charged with heresy, John Huss faced many false accusations.  Many people thought that he should just recant of these accusations even though they were false – this way he could live on and not die as a martyr.  But Huss...

 (This is a re-post from October 2010)

You cannot fully understand Martin Luther’s work unless you understand his distinction between the theologian of the cross and the theologian of glory.  This distinction is also important for us today especially when some are leaving the...

 When Jesus was answering the Pharisees’ diabolical accusation that he cast out demons “by the ruler of demons” (ἐν τῷ ἄρχοντι τῶν δαιμονίων) he gave an...

 I’ve been enjoying Gary Smith’s Isaiah commentary in the “New American Commentary” series.  I haven’t read it all, but so far so good!  This morning when studying Isaiah 25 I was looking at verse 8, which says this: “…he[Yahweh] will...

 What is saving faith?  This is one of the most important questions we can ask and have answered!  I like how J. Gresham Machen addressed the question:

A more “practical” question could hardly be conceived. The preacher says: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and...

 The phrase “the day of the LORD” (יוֹם־יְהוָה֙) in OT literature is a phrase with deep meaning and significance.  This phrase is often found in prophetic literature in the context of a significant...

 I’ve been enjoying Michael LeFebvre’s book, The Liturgy of Creation.  It’s a study of the festivals, feasts, and calendar dates of OT Israel and how those things can help us read and understand the creation week in Genesis 1-3.  I’m not quite finished...

 If you’ve used Bible commentaries even a little bit, you know that they are quite often hit or miss.  I’ve had it more than a few times that I purchase a highly recommended commentary and was disappointed with it so much that I turned around and sold it. Such is how it...

The two prefaces to the JPS (Jewish Publication Society) Hebrew-English Tanakh are helpful sources of information concerning the text of the Hebrew Old Testament.  In these prefaces, one can read about the history of the Hebrew text, the accuracy of the Hebrew text, and information about...

 I’ve been studying a couple of the stories in the Gospels where Jesus powerfully casts out demons with a mighty word.  Since I was a little boy I’ve loved these stories since I know that the realm of darkness is real and it’s terrifying.  I’m so thankful that...

 I’ve come to appreciate Cyril of Alexandria’s 5th-century commentary on Luke.  I don’t necessarily agree with everything in it, but it is interesting, edifying, and enlightening.  While studying the account of Jesus casting the demon out of the man in the synagogue...

  After studying and working through Isaiah 9:2-7, I appreciate how Gary Smith summarizes these verses in the “theological implications” section of his commentary.  FYI these verses in Isaiah 9 talk about a “shadow-of-death” kind of darkness that God shines his...

The doctrine of election (predestination) is tied tightly to other aspects of Reformed theology.  Geerhardus Vos expresses this well in his Reformed Dogmatics(recently published in English for the first time thanks to Logos and Lexham Press – see here and here).  Vos asks this...

 In a 1767 letter to one of his friends who was a pastor, John Newton said that a pastor has “two counter-streams to withstand.”  Both of them, he said, will swipe the pastor off his feet unless the Lord upholds him.  What are these two counter-streams? Opposition and popu...