Of the many legacies of the Protestant Reformation, few have had greater and wider-reaching impact than the rediscovery of the biblical understanding of vocation. Before the Reformation, the only people considered to have a vocation or calling were those who were engaged in full-time church work—monks, nuns, or priests. As Gene Veith writes, “The ordinary…
Why do we work? For five or six days of every week, most of us spend at least half of our waking hours doing a job. We take time away from our families and away from worldly pleasures to pursue an occupation. It’s simply what humans do. But why? Some say we work so that…
Christ has died and Christ has risen. He has called a people to himself and he is jealous of those who are his. Read and reflect upon what Charles Spurgeon says about Christ’s holy, jealous love: The Lord Jesus Christ, of whom I now speak, is very jealous of your love, O believer. Did he…
Your Church and Life Planning – Jonathan Leeman has an interesting and important article on how your church fits into your life. “If you are a Christian, it’s worth asking whether you include your church in your life planning. I mean ‘include the church’ in two ways: do you consider it as a factor in…
A few years ago there was a strike at a juvenile detention center that is near my house. The institution lies directly between my house and pretty much every place I ever drive to, so I had to go by it just about every time I set out. Every day the strikers would update a…
The Banner of Truth web site features a host of useful articles (1302 at last count). One that I’ve found worth reading and bookmarking is entitled simply “Apostasy.” In the article the author, David Samuel, makes a distinction between two terms that many people mistakenly use synonymously – apostasy and heresy. Apostasy he defines as…
This brief article is in response to a friend and reader of this site who wanted to know what this RSS thing is all about. If you’ve been reading blogs for any time at all you’ve probably heard about RSS and syndication and Atom and have wondered what they are all about. I aim to…
It has become quickly apparent that this conference exists not merely to equip pastors, but also to serve and honor them (and perhaps even spoil them a little). At the close of the earlier session one of the organizers announced that there was an area for “shoe-shining and everything else a pastor needs.” I don’t…
In yesterday’s article we built a framework in which to understand sex from a biblical perspective. We saw that sex is: a Gift From God; intended only for marriage; for giving and receiving pleasure; a means of building intimacy; intended for procreation. Today we will continue this discussion to encompass autoeroticism, the act of providing…
I wonder if it has always been true that when people write about the church they write with sadness, lamenting what the church has become or is becoming. In our day we have the church growth advocates bemoaning the fact that not enough churches engage in full-scale marketing of their churches; we have the Emergent…
Last week I mentioned that I had discovered 9 Marks Ministries and that I was thrilled to find an organization that is dedicated to recovering many of the traditional marks of a Biblical church. While they mention that the nine marks they outline are not the only important marks of a healthy church, they do…
The Passion of the Christ goes against everything I believe in. Or more accurately, it goes against everything I was raised to believe in. In the tradition I was raised (Canadian Reformed Church) movies were generally regarded as a sinful form of entertainment. Going to a theatre was to bring oneself into the “playground of…