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Some have compared the Confession to the US Constitution and have advocated a form of subscription analogous to “Strict Constructionism.” In this case, a creed or confession must always be interpreted and applied in accordance with the intent of its framers. Failure to do so calls into question one’s integrity and signifies that one is…
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In Genesis 28 Jacob dreams of a stairway linking heaven and earth—a vision that reveals a profound biblical principle: true religion does not arise from humanity’s attempt to ascend to God but from God’s gracious decision to descend and reveal himself. In this lecture commemorating the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, I explore how Jacob’s…
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What do we say when a Christian mother backs the car over the top of her little toddler and crushes him to death? When a young Christian man discovers he has brain cancer and must soon leave his three young children without a father? When a hurricane destroys the homes and disrupts the lives not…
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In Part 1, we defined family worship as “the occasion in which the members of a given family gather together in order to participate in special acts of worship, such as the singing of praise, the reading and hearing of Scripture, and the offering of prayer to God.” In this segment of our study, we’ll attempt to…
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I attended a Christian University along with approximately five-thousand other students, most of whom came from Christian homes. Although I never conducted an official survey, my general impression was that very few of my fellow Christian students had grown up in homes where family worship had been regularly practiced. It was a foreign concept to…
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One of the primary ways the church advances the kingdom of God is through corporate prayer. And when God’s people gather at the throne of grace, they should not limit their prayers to the elect, but they should pray for all people. Why? Because there is a wideness in God’s mercy. While his special grace…
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Like as a father pitieth his children,so the Lord pitieth them that fear him.—Psalm 103:13. In the former part of this psalm the Psalmist sang of God’s deeds of love, his gifts, his benefits, and his acts of kindness; but here he goes deeper into the divine motive, and hence he finds sweeter incentives to devout…
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The so-called “long day” recorded in Joshua 10:12-14 has generated much discussion among Bible scholars. Before Copernicus’ heliocentric solar system gained acceptance, it was argued that the sun’s and moon’s orbits were halted. Martin Luther, for example, reportedly denounced Copernicus and declared, “I believe the Holy Scriptures, for Joshua commanded the sun to stand still,…
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In John 17:21, the Lord Jesus prayed to His Father on behalf of the disciples “that they may all be one” (John 17:21). The Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Corinth (1 Cor. 1:10): “I plead with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing,…
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Should we allow minors into the membership of the church? Most evangelical churches would, without hesitation, answer this question affirmatively. Those that practice infant baptism believe the Bible warrants the inclusion of the children of believers into the membership of the church de jure. On the other hand, many Baptist churches today pressure young children…