Do you ever get to the end of a Sunday feeling shattered? If you’ve come to church in the morning, gone to someone’s house for lunch (or done the actual hosting), made it to the afternoon service, then talked to people after . . . Continue reading →
Sabbath
On Cancelling The Christian Sabbath And The Means Of Grace
Or Why Christ Is More Important Than Christmas
Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the . . . Continue reading →
Beza: The Sabbath As Set-Apart, Not Superstitious
We say that it is a superstition to esteem one day more holy than another, or to think that to abstain from labor is something which, in itself, pleases God (Rom 14:15, 6; Col 2:16,17). But, following what the Lord has commanded, . . . Continue reading →
Cyril: We Gather On The Eighth Day With Christ And Receive His Body Sacramentally
With good reason, then, are we accustomed to have sacred meetings in churches on the eighth day. And, to adopt the language of allegory, as the idea necessarily demands, we indeed close the doors, but yet Christ visits us and appears unto . . . Continue reading →
Psalms, Sabbath, And Iconoclasm Are Not Quirks But Acts Of Confession
Within wider Christianity, Presbyterians are often labeled—and sometimes dismissed—as traditionalists. This label may seem to explain some aspects of Presbyterian piety, but not all. When Christians outside of Reformed circles learn about the Presbyterian passion for singing Psalms, keeping Sabbath, and rejecting . . . Continue reading →
Is Missing Church A Sin?
Joe writes, “Is missing church a sin? Like if my child has a game, if I’m on vacation, or have to work?” Over the years many people have asked me some version of this question. It is an important question, one faced by the New Testament church and by the church in the twenty-first century. Continue reading →
Video: With Chris Coleman On The Grounds, Reason, And Fruit Of The Second Service On The Lord’s Day
A video discussion with Pastor Chris Coleman on the biblical and historical grounds for and the fruit of the second service on the Lord’s Day. Continue reading →
What To Do About Halloween On The Sabbath?
There are three major questions here: Halloween, the Sabbath, and how Christians ought to relate their faith in Christ to their life in the broader culture. Continue reading →
There Is No Evidence That Calvin Bowled On The Christian Sabbath
A remarkably durable anecdote about John Calvin, the great Protestant Reformer of Geneva, is often related by those critical of the Puritan view of the Sabbath…The goal seems to be to demonstrate that the Reformers were not tainted with that ‘pharisaical’ of . . . Continue reading →
Why Your Congregation Should Have An Evening Service
For a long time, it was assumed that Reformed churches would hold a service both on Sunday morning and Sunday evening. Although still practiced in many congregations, this pattern is no longer necessarily the expectation or assumption concerning how the Lord’s Day . . . Continue reading →
Recovering The Lost Treasure Of The Second Service
Unfortunately, these days the heart attitude of this dear elderly woman is almost as rare as the evening service itself. Indeed, over the past twenty years the evening service (in a variety of Christian traditions) has either been turned into a kind . . . Continue reading →
Cancelling The Lord’s Day After Christmas?
There are reports (documented in the comments below) that various ostensibly evangelical congregations are cancelling worship services this Lord’s Day. This has become something of a pattern in recent years. It seems that people, including the congregants, pastors, and church staff are . . . Continue reading →
It Is A Super Lord’s Day Not A Super Bowl Day
In 2018 an estimated 111 million people watched the Super Bowl. That is about 1/3 of all Americans. In our media-fragmented age, in our cord-cutting age, in our on-demand age, rarely do that many people watch the same thing at the same . . . Continue reading →
Growing Beyond Bi-Polar Spirituality Or Why You Should Be In A Confessional P&R Church
The Reformed faith, the Reformed confession, is more than five points on salvation (Dort). It is more than a set of doctrines. It is also a piety, a way of relating to God, and a set of churchly practices that grow out . . . Continue reading →
New: Cocceius’s Federal Theology Of The Sabbath
For good reason the name of J0hannes Cocceius (1603–69) appears regularly in surveys of the history of Reformed theology. His covenant theology, The Doctrine of the Covenant and Testaments of God is one of the most important texts in the history of . . . Continue reading →
What Passion City Gets Right And Wrong About The Sabbath
The last time we saw Atlanta Pastor Louie Giglio it was January 2013 and he was embroiled in controversy because he had been invited by President Obama to participate in his second inauguration. It had been discovered that Giglio held the biblical . . . Continue reading →
A “Rest” To Be Resisted: Resting From The Sabbath
Passion City, an evangelical congregation in Atlanta founded in 2009 by Louie Giglio (whom the reader may remember from the inauguration controversy), announced this week that the congregation will be taking a Sabbath from the Sabbath this Lord’s Day and the next. . . . Continue reading →
With Presbycast On The Christian Sabbath And Intinction
Walter Sobchak is a memorable character in the brilliant Coen Brothers’ film, The Big Lebowski. For all that he is not (e.g., careful about his use of certain a Anglo-Saxon profanity), Walter is faithful to his commitment to Shabbos (the Yiddish term . . . Continue reading →
We Need Sunday Christians
Some people say, “Our problem in Christianity is ‘Sunday only’ Christians who fail to live the life every day of the week.” But that’s a false dilemma. Show me a true Sunday Christian who comes to the Lord’s house, worshiping in joy, . . . Continue reading →
The Lord’s Day In Eclipse
The earliest reason given for celebrating Sunday is that it is the day of the resurrection (Ep. of Barnabas, 15.9), but in the Jewish understanding of the week the first day commemorated creation and this idea was taken over even by Gentile . . . Continue reading →