Pastoral ministry is, in many minds, synonymous with pulpit ministry. Yet pastors, as their name suggests, are not only preachers but shepherds. They are “those who will have to give an account” (Heb. 13:17), working as under-shepherds to the Chief Shepherd (1 Peter 5:2, 4), the one to whom the sheep belong.
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God’s goodness is an immense subject. Stephen Charnock, a seventeenth-century English Puritan, wrote extensively on the subject. In his two-volume work on the existence and attributes of God, he devoted 145 pages to God’s goodness along! Many of us would be hard-pressed to fill one page, but not Charnock.
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One the great tyrannies of our age is the lie that we will be most useful when we are as strong as we can be. We tell ourselves that God wants us to conquer all our challenges, to overcome the Evil One in frontal assault, to have our family and church and neighbors look to us and say, “Now there’s a strong servant of the Lord!”
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Writing in Psalm 139, David asks several thought-provoking questions. Having already marveled at the fact that God knows everything (vv. 1–6), he probes further: “Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence?” (v. 7). In other words, David asks whether a believer can hide from God. “Can I find an escape route,” the psalmist wonders, “from the God who searches me and knows everything ...
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“In the unity of the Godhead there be three Persons of one substance, power, and eternity: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. The Father is of none, neither begotten nor proceeding; the Son is eternally begotten of the Father; the Holy Ghost eternally proceeding from the Father and the Son.” —The Westminster Confession of Faith 2.3
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In the 1960s, a deviant religious group called, among other things, the Children of God emerged from California. The group’s declaration was essentially this: “We are revolutionary Christian nomads, bypassing the hopeless, unresponsive older generation and churchy people and bringing new-time religion to a new-time generation.”
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When it comes to the quality of their marriages, many husbands have become experts at comparing themselves to others. Christian husbands especially may be tempted to look at the way the world operates and think, “I am affectionate and faithful, a leader and a provider, as the Scriptures say I should be. I’m glad I’m getting it right!”
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Jesus’ prayer on the eve of His crucifixion is given in a familiar account. One phrase is particularly striking: “Not my will, but yours” (Luke 22:42). These five words demonstrate the Son’s submission to the Father—a heart disposition essential to all proper prayer.
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We can see the New Testament’s high view of church leadership unfold in the church’s earliest days. As the Gospel penetrated communities throughout the known world, converts formed local churches. And what did the apostles urge these churches to do? They were to appoint elders to lead (Acts 14:21–23; Titus 1:5).
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There are many notions about what it means to be a Christian. Many think they understand the term, yet many also mean different things by it. For some it’s a matter of family history: “I grew up in the church.” For others it means someone who lives by the Golden Rule, ascribes to certain political views, goes to church, or simply chose to identify that way at a particular point ...
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