Metropolitan New York Presbytery Annotated Bibliography on the Sacraments NOTE: This bibliography is distributed by the Leadership Development Team in order to assist candidates for ordination (or ministers seeking transfer) as they prepare for their exams. This bibliography has been prepared by Craig Higgins on behalf of the LDT.
Archive for May 2011
Metro New York’s Sacrament Reading List for Candidates
Tuesday, May 31, 2011PCA Disaster Relief Update and Appeal from Joplin, Missouri Tragedy
Tuesday, May 31, 2011Arklie Hooten, PCA/MNA Disaster Response Director, asks for help and prayer.
“Christian” Marxism & the Emergent Church
Tuesday, May 31, 2011Last week, I featured a definition of the Gospel by Jürgen Moltmann. Many of you may not care what Jürgen Moltmann, a German liberal, has to say about the Gospel. Why should you? Because he is one of the driving forces behind the Emergent Church movement, which is one of the most popular movements within [...]
N.T. Wright on America’s “Vigilantism”
Monday, May 30, 2011Last week, we noted that N.T. Wright thought that Americans’ concern with hell was “disturbing” because we’ve bombed so many people. I don’t know how many of you saw it, but N.T. Wright also seems to think that what America did to Osama bin Laden was disturbing. Here’s what he wrote: Consider the following scenario. [...]
Tribute to Our Present & Fallen Soliders
Monday, May 30, 2011Psalm 127:1 says that unless the Lord guards the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. As in all things, the Lord’s blessing is the only way to secure the defense of our “city.” But he uses the watchmen. I’m thankful for the watchmen who watch over our nation. Many of them we will never [...]
Do Not Overlook the Doctrine of Justification
Sunday, May 29, 2011Joseph Puglia, a pastor in the OPC, has written a really great article about the importance of the doctrine of justification by faith alone. His purpose in writing is to address the danger the church faces if it doesn’t respond to the threat to the doctrine “by which a church stands or falls”: The greatest [...]
We Must Pause Often to Think on Our Salvation
Sunday, May 29, 2011Most of our life is squandered. Time flies away. Life flows by. You come, go, speak, and act and almost never think about your salvation.
How to Keep the Sabbath Day Holy
Saturday, May 28, 2011“The fourth commandment requireth the keeping holy to God such set times as he hath appointed in his word; expressly one whole day in seven, to be a holy sabbath to himself” (WSC 58). God commanded His Old Testament people to keep holy the last day of the week, but He sanctified the first day [...]
OPC Pastor Shawn Mathis: Green Before Green Was Hip
Saturday, May 28, 2011OPC Pastor Shawn Mathis says that Christianity encourages stewardship of the creation. He wrote: I grew up environmentally active. And never knew it. I was taught to pick up trash. My parents even warned me they would stop the car and make me walk back to pick up any defenestrated trash (it never happened, because [...]
Poverty & the Delay of Gratification
Friday, May 27, 2011By TE Brian Carpenter When my wife was a child, she was told a story about two little girls who magically got to choose between two life scenarios: have the first half of life be pleasant and easy but the last part be painful and marked by hardship, or let the first half be marked [...]
Helm on Wright on Hell
Friday, May 27, 2011“N.T. Wright’s answer . . . is an object lesson in evasion.”
Was Jesus a Christian?
Friday, May 27, 2011By J. Gresham Machen, from Christianity & Liberalism But was Jesus really a Christian? Or, to put the same question in another way, are we able or ought we as Chrsitians to enter in every respect into the experience of Jesus and make Him in ever respect our example? Certain difficulties arise with regard to [...]
The Right Reverend Dr. N.T. Wright on the Historical Adam: Genesis is not “positivist, literal, clunky history over against myth”
Thursday, May 26, 2011Two days ago, Carl Trueman commented on N.T. Wright’s statement that Americans’ fixation with hell is “disturbing” because we’ve bombed so many people. Trueman noted that Wright had made a similar comment in regard to Americans’ fixation with the question of the historical Adam. I had not heard this before, so I looked for and [...]
One Liberal Theologian’s Explanation of the Gospel
Thursday, May 26, 2011The pleading Christ begs for his invitation to be accepted. He appeals to the people invited, but the appeal is based on their freedom. In Christ, God has reconciled the world with himself, so be reconciled with God! Reconciliation is possible. So here too we are told: God is going to create everything a new, [...]
Did you know that women aren’t even allowed to drive?
Thursday, May 26, 2011In Saudi Arabia.
Perimeter’s Next Gen & Community Transformation Pastor: Our vision’s so big, we’ve got to work together
Wednesday, May 25, 2011Written by Chip Sweney, author of A New Kind of Big, for byFaith: Our culture in the United States and in the Western hemisphere, in general, tends toward individualism, and inter-church connection is frequently no different. Often we are preoccupied with our church, our impact, and our role in God’s work. We operate as silos [...]
The Word Produces Faith; the Sacraments Confirm It
Wednesday, May 25, 2011We should always be thankful to God that He has given us the sacraments, and they should be considered two of our greatest treasures on earth. Benedict Pictet (1655-1724), a Genevan theologian and nephew of Francis Turretin wrote: Such is the goodness of God towards the church, that not content with entering into a covenant [...]
Hey Americans, your concern about hell is “disturbing” because you’ve dropped so many bombs on people
Tuesday, May 24, 2011Says N.T. Wright: Far more Americans ask me about hell than ever happens in my own country . . . There’s something quite disturbing about that, especially when your nation and mine has done quite a lot in the last decade or two to drop bombs on people elsewhere and to make a lot of [...]
If at first you don’t succeed, quit, ’cause you ain’t got it
Tuesday, May 24, 2011Especially when it comes to predicting Christ’s return.
Peter Leithart’s Federal Vision Views
Tuesday, May 24, 2011Peter Leithart is going to be tried by PNW Presbytery to determine whether his doctrinal views are out of accord with the Standards. You and I already know that he is, whatever PNW may decide. You can read a timeline of the events that led to the trial here. I have documented this in three [...]