Dear friends, In a few hours, we will say “goodbye” to 2010, and pass into 2011. I want to wish you a happy New Year, and also want to reflect with you a moment on the goodness of God in our lives over the past year. Consider if you will all the things that we [...]
Archive for December 2010
A Blade of Grass: A New Year’s Meditation by Pastor Phillip Mayberry
Friday, December 31, 2010A Woman of Noble Character Part 3: Mary
Saturday, December 25, 2010By Sarah Gleason* Mary, an unheralded but God-fearing young woman, never imagined the great and holy purposes God had planned for her until the angel, Gabriel, came to her. She was afraid but Mary was afraid. Gabriel spoke to her with wondrous words of comfort: “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor [...]
Apology to Dr. Bryan Chapell
Thursday, December 23, 2010A few months ago, Jason Stellman posted “Fit to be Tied?” on his blog, based on a speech about the current Federal Vision controversies in the PCA given by Rob Rayburn in Tacoma, Washington. So, what does that have to do with Dr. Bryan Chapell? Well, one of the things that Rob Rayburn said in [...]
Al Mohler on the Necessity of the Virgin Birth for the Christian Faith
Thursday, December 23, 2010On Tuesday, I posted an article on N.T. Wright’s new perspective on Christmas in which he stated, for example, that Paul’s Gospel could exist without mention of Christ’s birth. Al Mohler published an article yesterday that could have been a reply to Wright’s impious drivel. Mohler writes: What are we to do with the Virgin [...]
My Duty as a Pastor
Wednesday, December 22, 2010Thomas Vincent wrote an extremely helpful expansion on the Westminster Shorter Catechism entitled The Shorter Catechism Explained. You can read about Vincent here. In three posts, I would like to reproduce what he says about my duties as a husband, father, and pastor. These excerpts are taken from his discussion of the 5th commandment. You [...]
David Hall’s insightful analysis of the PCA’s current political impasse
Monday, December 20, 2010According to Ken Pierce, David Hall is “a giant among men.” I think the PCA does well to listen to him. Here is his year-end analysis of the PCA’s current political situation. Year-End Reflections on the PCA Administrative Committee’s Funding Plan: A Trusting Way Forward by David Hall† Good plans pick up steam and convince [...]
A Woman of Noble Character Part 2: Ruth
Monday, December 20, 2010By Sarah Gleason* Ruth, a Moabite, married an Israelite man who had moved to Moab from Judah with his parents to escape a famine. The family survived the famine but, sadly, not long afterward and in short succession, Ruth’s husband, his brother, and his father died leaving Ruth, her sister-in-law, Orpah, and her mother-in-law, Naomi, [...]
A Woman of Noble Character Part 1
Friday, December 17, 2010By Sarah Gleason* “Who can find a virtuous wife? For her worth is far more than rubies.” — Proverbs 31:10 Hundreds of years ago, King Lemuel’s mother asked this question as she offered advice to her son who was approaching the age of marriage. Wise mothers today do well to repeat this age-old question for [...]
Knox Theological Seminary scrubs Leithart and Armstrong from faculty page (Update 12/17, 1:14 p.m. MST)
Thursday, December 16, 2010Last week, we posted an article by Knox Theological Seminary by Stephen Welch. You can read that article here. One of the major points of the article is that Federal Visionists John Armstrong and Peter Leithart were on the adjunct faculty. A friend of mine informed me that they have now been scrubbed from the [...]
Important reminder from Eileen about the value of circumstantial evidence
Thursday, December 16, 2010Eileen said. . . Jesse, guilt by association is a logical fallacy which only speaks to its validity wrt arguments and not to its reliability as an indicator of reality. That GBA is a logical fallacy says nothing about whether, in fact, in the real world, even in a courtroom, someone’s associations *may* be valuable [...]
Unfiltered Reply to “Jesus & Pot”
Thursday, December 16, 2010Editor’s note: a few weeks ago, I posted a link to All Soul’s article “Jesus & Pot.” I wrote my own reply, which you can read here. I received a response from Justin Veyna, a member of a church in Rocky Mountain Presbytery, who had encountered this article a few years ago. I asked him [...]
Knox Seminary’s new address: 1 Federal (Vision) Highway
Wednesday, December 15, 2010Steve Matthews has provided a helpful follow-up on his blog Lux Lucet to Stephen Welch’s post on Knox Theological Seminary. He demonstrates that there were students who saw this coming and said so at the time. He writes: Last week Stephen Welch blogged a post titled Knox Theological Seminary: A New Haven for Federal Visionists. [...]
My duty as a parent
Wednesday, December 15, 2010Thomas Vincent wrote an extremely helpful expansion on the Westminster Shorter Catechism entitled The Shorter Catechism Explained. You can read about Vincent here. In three posts, I would like to reproduce what he says about my duties as a husband, father, and pastor. These excerpts are taken from his discussion of the 5th commandment. You [...]
30 churches in 15 years? Rocky Mountain’s church-planting vision seven years later
Tuesday, December 14, 2010In the spring of 2003, Multiply, a publication of Mission to North America of the PCA published an article on Rocky Mountain Presbytery (Colorado, Wyoming, Montana hereafter RMP). The summary at the top of the article stated, “A church planting movement guided by Rocky Mountain Presbytery is building the PCA presence in three western states [...]
Surprised by Dope: A Reply to All Souls
Thursday, December 9, 2010Though some of us may be surprised to learn that choosing not to smoke dope could actually be a sin, the issue that I have with the article entitled “Jesus & Pot” is the theological framework of this article. I do appreciate the desire of TE Christian Cryder of All Souls PCA in Missoula, MT, [...]
My duty as a husband
Wednesday, December 8, 2010Thomas Vincent wrote an extremely helpful expansion on the Westminster Shorter Catechism entitled, The Shorter Catechism Explained. You can read about Vincent here. In three posts, I would like to reproduce what he says about my duties as a husband, father, and pastor. These excerpts are taken from his discussion of the 5th commandment. You [...]
On the deceitful use of theological language
Tuesday, December 7, 2010“At this point an objection may be raised. The liberal preacher, it may be said, is often ready to speak of the ‘deity’ of Christ; he is often ready to say that ‘Jesus is God.’ The plain man is much impressed. The preacher, he says, believes in the deity of our Lord; obviously then his [...]
Knox Theological Seminary: A New Haven for Federal Visionists
Tuesday, December 7, 2010By Stephen Welch, Pastor of Sovereign Grace Presbyterian Church in River Denys, Nova Scotia, and graduate of Knox Theological Seminary Dr. D. James Kennedy, the former pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, founded Knox Theological Seminary in 1989. He chose the name Knox, because he wanted a seminary dedicated to training men like the Scottish [...]
Calvin on John 2:23–25 & False Disciples
Monday, December 6, 2010“Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name when they saw the signs which He did. But Jesus did not commit Himself to them, because He knew all men, and had no need that anyone should testify of man, for He knew what was in man.” [...]
Paul Helm on Aquinas on Divine Impassibility
Saturday, December 4, 2010Paul Helm has given a good summary of the issues surrounding divine impassibility in the context of an overview of Aquinas’ discussion of this issue. I would highly recommend it. He writes: Some people get passionate over the very idea of divine impassibility, even in their haste misspelling it as ‘impassability’, and equating it with [...]