Reformation21

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.” The service ended a couple of minutes ago. The momentary silence of the sanctuary was punctured by the children, whose failed attempts to whisper quickly rose to shouts as they joined friends. A gentle buzz of pleasantries then filled the ambient...

As you think about the items that fill your to-do list, where does “pursue purity” fall in your rank of priorities? I suspect that while we all desire to pursue purity, many of us probably aren’t sure exactly what that should look like! It’s a priority in principle, but often not in practice. How...

Preachers love pulpits. We dream of Calvin’s crowned pulpit with the spiral staircase, Spurgeon’s rail pulpit in London, Palmer’s marble pulpit in Columbia, or the “high pulpit” of the Independent Presbyterian Church in Savannah. But my favorite is the pulpit I have the privilege to fill each Lord’...

When I told a friend in Italy that I was not familiar with the name Patrick Zaki, he was surprised. Zaki’s name has appeared frequently in the Italian news ever since his arrest in Cairo, Egypt, about nineteen months ago. And the news media continue to follow as his trial is repeatedly postponed...

For decades now, Christian congregations have had to deal with differences in musical styles in Christian worship. Some prefer "contemporary music." Others prefer "traditional music." The differences become a source of contention. Sadly, we now have the term "worship wars," as a label to describe...

Note: Read more from the author's "Runner in a Race" series here. One of the many lessons I learned from my cross-country ski coach was to keep my head up and look ahead when skiing, particularly when skiing up a steep hill. Going up a sharp incline is hard work, and it is natural to look down when...

Several years ago, I went hiking in the Smokies with a group of friends. This wasn’t a trail I was familiar with, and I wasn’t in the best of shape at the time. I soon began to lag behind the group. They would always return for me to try and encourage me and walk with me. My pride would always...

C.S. Lewis is among my very favorite authors, and The Great Divorce is arguably my favorite book. In the inventive work of fiction, the inhabitants of a gray, dreary, and inconsequential hell take a bus to the outskirts of heaven and meet with a variety of saints. The most powerful and poignant...

One of the most anticipated races of the 1984 summer Olympics was the women’s 3000m, featuring the American Mary Decker and the South African Zola Budd. Decker—who had won a 3000m at the World Championships the preceding year—was favored to win the gold medal, and Budd knew she could not beat the...

“The doctrine of last things certainly has to reckon with all these things .” [1] The above quote comes from an interesting little paragraph in Herman Bavinck’s Reformed Dogmatics , “the concluding high point” of four centuries of Dutch Reformed reflection. [2] By “these things,” Bavinck means the...