August 2013

Last Sunday, in looking at the Third Commandment, we looked at the idea of the name of God, and how the name of God is much more than just a phonetic symbol identifying the God that we worship. Rather, it is the idea of the way that God chooses to reveal Himself. In the Scriptures, it is associated with such rich ideas as the people of God (those on whom He puts His name, Jeremiah 15:6), the worship of God (where His name is proclaimed, Psalm 69:10), , the nation of God (where His name is made known, Psalm 76:1) and the city of GodRead More →

Some thoughts from sermon preparation for this Sunday: Ephesians 5:16 “Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.” Say you’re driving along in your car, and suddenly, you run out of gas. You’re out in the middle of nowhere, an old country road with nothing around for miles. But you’ve got cell phone coverage, so you call your wife or AAA or someone to come fill you up. They say they’ll get there in a couple of hours or so. Now you’ve got nothing to do but wait. Your day is ruined. But you’ve got a good book with you. Now you realize that evenRead More →

This Sunday we read the Ten Commandments as part of our confession of the Heidelberg Catechism. This begins our examination of the Ten Commandments and the role they play in the Christian life. As we are also studying the Ten Commandments in the Sunday School class, we should remind ourselves what role the law in general plays in our lives, and particularly, what role the law plays in Christian worship. Paul told us that we are not under law but under grace. But we need to understand what he means. He does not at all mean that God’s moral truth no longer applies to us,Read More →

In the salutation, we say, “Grace be unto you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. If we are fully Trinitarian in our theology, a question might arise- why just from the Father and the Son? Why not from the Spirit? From the blog “Feeding on Christ” (feedingonchrist.com), we find a quote from Jonathan Edwards that provides an interesting answer. From An Unpublished Essay on the Trinity (http://www.ccel.org/ccel/edwards/trinity/files/trinity.html) Edwards says, “I can think of no other good account that can be given of the apostle Paul’s wishing grace and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ in theRead More →

Hymn #176 is a song of praise to Jesus Christ for His sacrificial death on our behalf. The Second Person would have been worthy of praise had He never been incarnate and had He never died, but Revelation 5:9 cites this fact in particular: “You are worthy to take the scroll, And to open its seals; For You were slain, And have redeemed us to God by Your blood Out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation…” Indeed, we would have never known God to praise Him rightly if Jesus had not died to save us. He became lowly and despised, a commonRead More →