At its recent plenary assembly my beloved former denomination, the Free Church of Scotland, voted by a narrow margin to change its stated position on worship. In 1932 the denomination decreed that the following should be read by the presiding minister at every ordination service, Continue reading
Author Archives: David Strain
What do Reformed Baptists and Federal Visionists have in common?
It seems to me that they both confuse the decree of election with the outward administration of the covenant of grace. Continue reading
To Know and Serve God: Reformation Bible Conference
This weekend Main Street Presbyterian Church will be hosting Professor R Scott Clark at our first Reformation Bible Conference.
Dr Clark will speak on Saturday the 30th October at 10am on “The God We Worship”, and after lunch on, “The Covenants God Makes”. During the Sunday School hour on the 31st October, Dr Clark will address “The Covenantal Worship God Requires”, and will also preach a sermon entitled, ”God’s Peace, His Pastor, and Preparation”, from Hebrews 13:20-21, , in the Lord’s Day morning worship service .
In honor of Reformation Day, our worship will use a slightly modified version of Martin Bucer’s 1539 Strasbourg Liturgy and will feature Psalms from the Trinity Psalter. There will be a children’s program and a free lunch on Saturday for attendees.
Should you be in the area we would rejoice in your company and fellowship as we feast together on the riches of the gospel and the truth of God’s Word.
Shuffling back into the blogosphere
Alright! I know! Its been a while. Fact is, marriage, children, pastoral teamwork, shepherding the flock and the daily fight with my own remaining corruption- life in other words- have gotten between me and blogdom.
Nevertheless, after some prompting, I’m back. I hope to use this space for devotional and theological reflection, and to be more consistent in my use of it.
How about ‘in it but not of it’ for a change?
I could not agree more with this post.
Instead of everyone talking about being ”missional” (a word without a definition as far as I can tell), how would it be if every church planter coming for evaluation began talking about being confessional? Instead of being ‘in the city, for the city’, how about, ’here we have no abiding city’ for a new church’s vision statement? How about, instead of reaching the culture shaping arts community (again!), why not long to plant a vanilla presbyterian church that builds a community of disciples with a culture all its own? How about replacing the drive for ‘relevance’ with a push towards maturity? How about cutting all the hubris about starting a church planting ‘movement’ when we haven’t even gathered a ‘core group’, and settle down with the more modest aim of preaching the gospel and gathering believing sinners into a single, healthy, orthodox, local assembly and equipping local shepherds who will do the hard work of caring for the sheep?
Just wondering…
“God” and other hypernyms
A hypernym is a word whose meaning is wider than the word used to define it. For example, ‘shelter’ is a hypernym of ‘apartment’. ‘Animal’ is a hypernym of ‘dog’. ‘Creature’ is a hypernym of ‘human being’.
In a sentence one might say “The congregation stared at the anomalous thing (there’s the hypernym) standing before them and declaiming from their pulpit as though never having heard a preacher announce the gospel before.” In this sentence, ‘anomalous thing’ is a hypernym of ‘preacher’.
In the same way, ‘God’ is a hypernym of every descriptor used to define Him. When we say “God is good”, ‘goodness’ does not exhaust the definition of ’God’. We might go on piling up adjectives, all of which speak truly about God, yet we will run out of words long before we ever conclude a satisfactory exposition of the god-ness of God.
I cannot help think that the great occupation of saints and angels in glory will be the unceasing exposition of the deity; unceasing because it will never exhaust the fresh vistas of glory that will break upon our consciousness as we meditate on the Majesty in whose nearer presence we have come to dwell.
Gathered around the throne, the redeemed of every tribe and nation will pour forth adjectives in every tongue and language in adoration of the multifaceted glories of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. On that day we shall join our voices in a ceaseless paean of praise to sing the eternally new song in answer to each new discovery of the Reality to which all faithful liturgical and theological speech points us.
Bavinck the pietist?
“In a comparatively sound church life, it is possible to assume that as a rule the children of the covenant will be born again in their youth and come to faith and conversion ‘in stages and gracefully.’ But when the world penetrates the church and many people grow up and live for years without showing any fruits worthy of faith and repentance, then the serious-minded feel called to warn against trusting one’s childhood regeneration and one’s historical faith in Christian doctrine and to insist on true conversion of the hearts, and experiential knowledge of the truths of salvation. Against a dead orthodoxy, Pietism and Methodism, with their conventicles and revivals, always have a right to exist.”
Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, Vol III, p583
Reformation 2 Germany News
Sebastian Heck is seeking, under God, to establish a confessional Reformed work in Heidelberg, Germany. One major issue has been securing premises for the nascent congregation to worship in. In answer to prayer, God has provided.
Links to DG Hart interview on the 2 Kingdoms
Here (in response to a recent request) are links to the D.G. Hart interviews. Enjoy…
Muller on so called 5 Point Calvinists
Read what the leading authority on the development of Reformation and Post Reformation Reformed theology thinks of those who claim to be ‘reformed’ because they embrace the 5 points of the Synod of Dordt, here.
HT Nic Batzig
Greece is the word
I just heard from some very old friends with whom I’ve been out of touch for a long time, only to discover they are now serving the Lord in student ministry in Athens, (that’s in Greece, not Georgia!) Thought I’d direct your attention to their work here.
Why Johnny Can’t Write
Discover some of the wicked causes of our cultural descent into ’Inglish’ here
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