As we approach that time of year when the church in particular remembers the death and resurrection of our Savior, it is appropriate to consider this often perplexing question. Christians, faithful to a Reformed understanding of Scripture, have always held that “it was God’s will that Christ through the blood of the cross (by which […]

In 2 Timothy 3 the apostle Paul gives us a description of the times in which we live, the “last days,” the days between the first and second coming of Christ. He ends the list of descriptive words with these words “lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God” (v. 4). What an apt description […]

Last time we began to reflect on the place of pleasure in the life of the Christian. We looked at those innocent pleasures that fill our everyday life with unstained joys. We also mentioned our tendency sinfully to twist these pleasures and turn them into idols, seeking more out of them than what they can […]

We come to the final article of our reflections on pleasure in the Christian’s live. We looked at innocent pleasure that fill us with unstained joy in the first article. In the second we focused on guilty pleasures that leave us feeling stained, guilty, and empty. In this article I want to focus on how […]

If you were to make a list of nine Christian virtues or aspects that you would like to see more fully developed in your life, would joy be included in that list? If it is, how high up on that list would it be? Paul reminds us that joy is part of the fruit the […]

In one of Paul’s earliest letters, he expresses the cry of his own heart and that of every faithful minister after him: “Brothers, pray for us” (1 Thessalonians 5:25). In this verse, he desires that the congregation in Thessalonica will continually pray for those who minister God’s word to them. Pray on our behalf! Paul […]

It is important to have a clear Biblical understanding of the answer to this question, for we have a tendency to lean toward the one or the other. Some assume it is the church’s responsibility, which produces the tendency for parents to draw back and leave it all up to the church. They hardly ever […]

Every Lord’s Day we recite one of the creeds together in our worship service. Have you ever wondered where these creeds came from, and why we recite them over and over? When I was a young Christian, newly converted, filled with zeal, I thought this was just a formal act, a bad “tradition.” It was […]

The Nicene Creed as we know it is more accurately called the Nicaeno-Constantinopolitan Creed. This is because the creed we have is a product, by and large, of both the Ecumenical Councils of Nicea (325) and Constantinople (381). I say by and large because later there was in the Western Church an important addition that […]

The Athanasian Creed is named after the great champion of Nicene orthodoxy, Athanasius (AD 293–373). In the previous article on the Nicene Creed we mentioned the contribution of Athanasius and his defense of the Trinity against Arius.1 But Athanasius did not write this creed and in fact it deals with controversies that arose and were […]