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Isaiah

The Desert of the Sea

Introduction Isaiah 21 can only be understood in the light of its placement in the architecture of the second “volume” of the prophecy (chapters 13–27). The contents are arranged in twin sevenfold “columns” that represent the great bronze pillars of Solomon’s Temple: Jachin and Boaz, priest and king. The priestly…

by Mike BullFebruary 20, 2025
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Isaiah

Jesus Enthroned on the Zodiac

A Biblical Reflection on the Purpose of the Constellations The starry heavens hold a place of wonder in the hearts of men. Since man’s creation we have looked up into the heavens and have beheld its glory. This is particularly true of the night sky. The stars, in their shinning…

by Matthew DarbyFebruary 19, 2025
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Matthew

An Overall Chiasm around Six Discourses in the Gospel According to Matthew  

The case for there being five discourses within the Gospel according to Matthew is a hard one to challenge: surely the closing formula “when Jesus finished these sayings” as found in 8:1, 11:1, 13:53, 19:1, and 26:1 settles it once and for all. And by the five instances of the…

by Benoit EngelFebruary 13, 2025
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Matthew

Exegesis of the Great Commission

The Long Commission The Great Commission of Matthew 28 has long been a cornerstone of American Evangelicalism. It has formed and fashioned the American church’s missional impulse. Yet when viewed from the wide lens of Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation, the Great Commission is revealed as one of the pillars…

by Ralph Allan SmithFebruary 11, 2025
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Lord's Supper

Genuine Paedocommunion

I am delighted to see that more and more churches in the Reformed tradition are now recognizing that all baptized children are members of the body of Christ and therefore ought to be communing with the rest of the body at the Lord’s Table. This has been decades in the…

by Jeff MeyersFebruary 6, 2025
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Twitter and Emotional Sabotage

Good leaders have always been rare. In today’s world, they seem extinct. Joe Rigney’s recent book Leadership and Emotional Sabotage digs into the spiritual reasons for the leadership epidemic and recommends cures. Rigney starts with a summary of a book by Edwin Friedman called A Failure of Nerve . Friedman’s…

by Christian LeithartFebruary 4, 2025

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History

Anger

“In most of our scholarly literature about the classical world,” writes Columbia University’s William V. Harris in his Restraining Rage: The Ideology of Anger Control in Classical Antiquity , “political and religious change . . . seems to take place in a remarkably calm fashion.” Harris doubts that this is…

December 28, 2004

Sermon Outline, January 2

So, What Are We Anyway? INTRODUCTION The liturgical changes recently introduced at Trinity might well provoke an identity crisis for members of the church. Have we become Lutherans? Or Anglicans? Or have we abandoned the Reformation altogether? Are we still Protestants? Are we on the road to Rome, Canterbury, Constantinople?…

December 27, 2004

Eucharistic Meditation, December 26

1 Corinthians 11: the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it. Division and reunion, death and resurrection, is the basic pattern of human life. Marriage is, as Pastor Wilson has taught us, woven into the fabric…

December 26, 2004

Exhortation, December 26

As Pastor Wilson will explain more fully in the sermon this morning, division is an essential part of creation. God creates by dividing light and darkness, by separating waters above and waters below, by drawing a boundary between sea and land. This creative division continues throughout Scripture, as God recreates…

December 26, 2004

Baptism Meditation, December 26

Matthew 18:1-6 At that time the disciples came to Jesus and said, ?Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven??EAnd He called a child to Himself and set him before them, and said, “Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not…

December 26, 2004

Lordly Obedience

The following is a Christmas Eve homily, largely paraphrased/quoted from Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics , 4.1, pp. 185ff. John 5:30: ?I can do nothing on My own initiative As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is just, because I do not seek My own will, but the will of…

December 23, 2004

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