Most of us were taught that government exists to provide for the common defense—a military and a social-safety net—but the actual budgets show that our government has become a big insurance company that also runs a navy. Read more» —Ben Sasse January . . . Continue reading →
…Christ is the mark whereat faith must aim; and, therefore, men’s minds do nothing else but wander when they turn aside from him. Therefore, no marvel if all the divinity of Popery be nothing else but an huge lump and horrible labyrinth; . . . Continue reading →
The theme for season 5 of Office Hours is New Life in the Shadow of Death. We’ve been talking about sanctification. Dovetailing with those 20 or so episodes is the annual WSC faculty conference, this Friday and Saturday, January 17–18, 2014, which . . . Continue reading →
From the outset, it is important to note that church membership did not begin the New Testament, but rather in the Old Testament. Exodus 19 is considered the first church gathering in the Bible, because God commanded Moses to consecrate and assemble . . . Continue reading →
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In Part 1 I sketched the history and current legal status of the Mt Soledad Cross and I indicated some ambivalence about that use of the cross. On the one hand, it seems clear that some opposition to the cross is less . . . Continue reading →
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Lutheran Baby Boomer, Hi. Sir. Ma’am. I hear you say a lot of things about people my age in the church, people 30 and under. I hear you say them and I really am listening–mostly–but in my head, . . . Continue reading →
Of the psalter (the 150 psalms) John Calvin (1509–164) wrote: “The varied and resplendid riches which are contained it this treasury it is no easy matter to express in words; so much so, that I well know that whatever I shall be . . . Continue reading →
During a recent trip to the mall I looked up to see a large sign over a store declaring, “True Religion.” Yikes! Of course it got my attention and, I admit, it made my dead orthodox pulse race just a little. These . . . Continue reading →
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In unguarded moments, the young men I work with acknowledge their disengagement, and more than that, they articulate a confusion and even ambivalence about what it means to be a man. They can make jokes about traditional male identity until the cows . . . Continue reading →
Can the Church commit itself to becoming more serious, more—may I say it?—devout, a little more courageous, a little less crowd-pleasing, a little less self-preoccupied, and a little less comfortable? Can the Church become the Church as it is supposed to be? . . . Continue reading →
Although not particularly popular, either in our present secular milieu or in bearing our present ecclesiological amnesia, I continue to believe that having, holding, and requiring a confession is good for us. In short, a confession is good for our health, even . . . Continue reading →
“For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to . . . Continue reading →
No truth today seems more self-evident in our culture than the fact that God is love. But this is not understood in its biblical setting where John immediately defines the nature of this love by saying that Christ was sent “to be . . . Continue reading →
We live in a time when telling the truth is not fashionable, when it’s considered a little gauche (unsophisticated, awkward) to speak the truth plainly. More than that it’s considered a little old-fashioned to talk about truth at all. As far as . . . Continue reading →
The Holy Spirit has sometimes been described as the forgotten member of the Trinity. Whether that is true it is important to recognize the Spirit’s role in progressive sanctification, that gradual, gracious renewal to the image of Christ. He is the Spirit . . . Continue reading →
Just when one might have thought that the Young, Restless, and Reformed movement(s) might be waning—they aren’t getting any younger—comes a piece in last Friday’s New York Times by Mark Oppenheimer on the Calvinist revival among evangelicals. Of course it begins with TULIP . . . Continue reading →