Perseverance

For fifty years, Leonard Bernstein conducted the New York Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra. He is regarded as one of the most important musicians in American history. A reporter once asked him, “What is the most difficult instrument to play?” Bernstein reflexively replied, “Second fiddle! I can...

Part 1 can be found here . This paragraph presents the third salient feature of divine providence: the preservation of the church. As the providence of God doth in general reach to all creatures, so after a most special manner it taketh care of His church, and disposeth of all things to the good...

Two of some of the biggest questions that many Christians ask relate to prayer. On one hand, Christians want to know how they should pray. On the other hand, they want to know what they should be praying for. According to the Westminster Larger Catechism, “Prayer is an offering up of our desires...

In First Kings 8 we see King Solomon lead in corporate prayer and what stands out about his prayer is that it is Solomon pleading for what the Lord has already promised. He uses language like “keep for your servant David my father what you have promised” (verse 25) and “let your word be confirmed,...

Hallgrímur Pétursson – Iceland’s Poet of Comfort The news that Hallgrímur Pétursson was ordained as Lutheran minister at Hvalsnes, Iceland, raised many eyebrows. He had not completed his education and, what was worse, he had fathered a child out of wedlock. But Brynjólfur Sveinsson, bishop of...

Rosa Young – Committed to Serve At the turn of the twentieth century, many civil rights advocates fought to create better communities and lives for Black Americans. They did it mostly through politics, essays, and discussions. Rosa Young – a name still largely unknown– did it through education, the...

Back in the 1980’s when my wife and I were pursuing our Master’s degrees in music at Arizona State University, before we understood Reformed/Covenant Theology, we experienced first-hand a situation similar to what is given to us in the Gospel of John, chapter 9. Seeing a blind man, the disciples...

Original Sin: Born This Way James and Jonathan tackle a foundational theological topic this week. The doctrine of original sin is integral to our grasp of many other biblical doctrines. How should we define original sin, and how is it different from the sins we commit daily? Guilt, corruption,...

Onesimos Nesib, Aster Ganno, and the Oromo Translating Team In my last post, I wrote about Pauline Fathme, Christian Rufo, and their efforts to bring the gospel to Ethiopia. Rufo worked with the German Johann Ludwig Krapf to translate portions of the Bible into the language of the Oromo, which at...

David George – from Anxious Runaway to Zealous Pastor Born on a cotton plantation in Virginia around 1742, David George grew accustomed to hard work and abuse. The plantation owner, a man called “Chapel,” was particularly cruel. George had to witness the whipping of his sister Patty and the...