“While they are yet babes…”

From Charles Spurgeon’s morning devotional for September 17th:
“Bring him unto me.”- Mark 9:19
“Despairingly the poor disappointed father turned away from the disciples to their Master. His son was in the worst possible condition, and all means had failed, but the miserable child was soon delivered from the evil one when the parent in faith obeyed [...]

Our Sins at the Seminary (Part V – Final)

(taken from two letters from John Angell James to his brother Thomas
James—on beginning his studies for the Christian ministry, circa 1811-1812)
“Secondly, I will now, my dear brother, point out those circumstances in your present situation, in which the vigor of personal piety is in danger of being relaxed. It is certainly a melancholy reflection that there [...]

Our Sins at the Seminary (Part IV)

(taken from two letters from John Angell James to his brother Thomas
James—on beginning his studies for the Christian ministry, circa 1811-1812)
“What I intend at present is, not to prove the self-evident truth—that to teach religion we must first know it ourselves—but to insist on the infinite importance of endeavoring to maintain the vigor and life [...]

Our Sins at the Seminary (Part III)

(taken from two letters from John Angell James to his brother Thomas
James—on beginning his studies for the Christian ministry, circa 1811-1812)
“If you keep in view as you ought, and as I pray God you may, the proper design of your academic pursuits—if your soul glows with burning zeal for the glory of God, and is [...]

Our Sins at Seminary (Part II)

(taken from two letters from John Angell James to his brother Thomas
James—on beginning his studies for the Christian ministry, circa 1811-1812)
“A man who is systematically trained to the terrible art of war is taught some of the modern languages, he is instructed in mathematics, mechanics, geography, history, fortification; not, however, merely for the sake of [...]

Our Sins at Seminary (Part I)

(taken from two letters from John Angell James to his brother Thomas
James—on beginning his studies for the Christian ministry, circa 1811-1812)
“The subject of the present letter is to state the chief end and design with which you should enter on your preparatory studies, and the great importance of ever keeping that end in view.
It is [...]

God’s Reign in Our Families: Does Family Planning Have a Place in the Kingdom of God?

In his work entitled, The Gospel of the Kingdom, George Eldon Ladd wrote, “..the righteousness which God demands of us, He must give to us, or we are lost. The only life which can be made pure is the life which knows the power of God’s Kingdom, His rule.” It is no secret in Scripture [...]

Abraham, Personhood, and Uniqueness

Yet another reason that I recommend this book to whosoever will listen…
From Oliver O’Donovan’s Begotten or Made?:
“When Abraham entertained the three heavenly visitors by his tent at Mamre, he slaughtered a calf (Gen. 18). Has anyone ever asked which calf? Yet you could not slaughter a human being without slaughtering some particular human being, someone [...]

“The Kingdom of God is hostile to nothing but sin alone…”

Combating the ideal that “the gospel is hostile to culture” and in a deeper sense, hostile to the created purposes of Creation, Herman Bavinck writes, “The Christian is the true man, on every front and in every domain. Christianity is not opposed to nature, but to sin. Christ came, not to destroy the works of [...]

Life Worth Living and Death Worth Dying: Book Review of Paul Ramsey’s “The Patient as Person”

“Life in the first of it and life in the last of it are both prismatic cases of human helplessness.” – Paul Ramsey, “The Patient as Person”
When there is talk about the premiere Christian ethicists of the 20th century, the name Paul Ramsey consistently rises to the top of the list. Few ethicist-theologians were as [...]