The significance of communion

What is so important about communion? Or is it important? Every month we take time to eat a little piece of bread and drink a tiny cup of juice, and we say that it is an important and significant act of worship. Is it? We know that not only do the gospel writers provide accounts […]

The beginning of idolatry

D. A. Carson — With everybody wanting to be at the center of the universe, there can only be strife. I know full well that nobody goes around chanting, “I’m at the center of the universe.” Yet if I were to hold up your high school or college graduation class photo and say, “Here’s your […]

An example and a hope

The Old Testament can sometimes seem obscure and difficult to understand. There are all the laws, sacrifices, and festivals in the Pentateuch that often seem quite disconnected from where and how we live, then there are some weird stories in the historical books (e.g., Judges 19 and 21), and it all culminates in the prophets […]

Free David Brainerd Biography eBook

From Desiring God: In 1742 Yale College expelled David Brainerd. He had made some prohibited comments about some of the faculty and, though at the top of his class academically, Yale booted him. Add to this that in order to be an established minister in Connecticut you had to be a graduate of Yale, Harvard, […]

Running rules

I’m not a runner. (I’ve long said that my body is built for comfort, not speed!) But there is a kind of running that I must do and that all believers must do. We run the race of the Christian life (1 Cor. 9:24-27) — that is, we labor and work in the Christian life […]

A question of liberty

In 1 Corinthians 8, Paul explains the issue of liberty and freedom for the Christian — when is it permissible to exercise a freedom and when should practicing a liberty be avoided? There are numerous questions to answer in determining whether or not to use one’s liberty, and I thought it helpful to make it […]

A day in God’s courts

Charles Spurgeon on Psalm 84 and the joys of worship with the Lord. This is a fitting meditation to prepare us for worship this morning: This Psalm well deserved to be committed to the noblest of the sons of song. No music could be too sweet for its theme, or too exquisite in sound to […]

Help for your spiritual disciplines

Too often I have experienced the phenomena of reading my Bible in the morning, closing it, and not remembering anything particular that I have read. I don’t think my experience is unique. As Don Whitney has explained, it is often due to lack of meditation. [His rule of one minute of meditation and reflection for […]

Grab bag

Some helpful articles from the last week: Jon Bloom explains why “God is Merciful Not to Tell Us Everything: “Can you imagine how the disciples might have felt if the Lord had explained to them that he would not assume his earthly reign for another 2,000-plus years, during which the Church would gradually and with […]

A benefit of sickness

There are benefits to sickness, according to the puritan, Jeremy Taylor [Holy Dying]. Consider: Truth is, there are but two great periods in which faith demonstrates itself to be a powerful and mighty grace; and they are persecution and the approaches of death…By the faith of the promises we learn to despise the world, choosing […]

Four reasons for the unmarried to consider singleness

There are more people than ever in America who are living as singles. Yet even in the American church, while there are more opportunities for singles to serve in minister, there still seems to be a stigma that is attached to being single. So what’s a single person to do? Biblically, singles are free both […]

Think much on heaven’s hope

John Owen, “The Grace and Duty of Being Spiritually Minded:” Suppose sundry persons engaged in a voyage unto a most remote country, wherein all of them have an apprehension that there is a place of rest and an inheritance provided for them. Under this apprehension they all put themselves upon their voyage, to possess what […]

A better friend

Philip Melanchthon had evidently been complaining to his friend Martin Luther about some problems he was facing. Martin Luther wrote him back some direct counsel (June 27, 1530). I need friends like this and I need to be unafraid to be this kind of friend: Those great cares by which you say you are consumed […]

What has changed?

Transformation isn’t always readily or immediately apparent. Go to a new car lot and it may be hard to tell the difference between the 2012 and 2011 models. But underneath the hood, there are likely to be significant improvements. Or when looking on a store shelf and seeing the label “new and improved” affixed to […]

Excuses for prayer

Instinctively and automatically [the carnal mind] will mobilize all the reasons it can conceive of for not praying now: You are too busy; your mind is too preoccupied; your heart is not inclined toward prayer; later on you will have more time, your mind will be more calm and collected, and you will be able […]