Here at St. Mary’s we pick-up our verse by verse study of Paul’s letter to the Romans. This life-changing letter has been a focus each summer since 2010. This year is the last. We started at the final great hinge of the letter, Romans 12.1-2, two Sundays ago. And as we go through the 40… Read More Summer’s here, and that means…
This past week I went to my first Acts29NJ church planters conference at Emergence Church, Totowa NJ about 18 – 20 minutes from where I grew up. The plenary and discussions got my mind working as I sought to apply what I learned from these planters and what I have experienced in ministry these 22… Read More Musical Tone
Why did Jesus have to die? He is your substitute. He took the punishment you deserved so that you can receive the blessing he deserved, all for the glory of God. Here it is in black and white. The most important paragraph in the Bible. But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart… Read More The Most Important Paragraph in the Bible
With sermons for tonight, tomorrow night and Easter Sunday done, my thoughts and prayer turn to those whom our heavenly Father draws to hear the gospel this year – those who only come to church on Christmas and Easter. Do you know what is true about folks who only come to church on Christmas and… Read More Holy Week, Easter, Prayer and Preaching
Sometimes I am able to negotiate a combined Christmas/birthday expense to gain a significant collection or set of books. Last year it was a 50% off sale of the New Studies in Biblical Theology Series (edited by D.A. Carson) offered by Westminster Seminary bookstore. My advice is to read as many of these as you… Read More The Clarity of Scripture
2013 is the year the Episcopal Church, well, The Diocese of New Jersey anyway, has discovered reading the Bible. I was thrilled to hear the presentation in our minister’s meeting of last September because the reading and particularly the hearing of the Bible preached is God’s primary means of grace. The cycle of local ministry… Read More Robert M. McCheyne and The B-I-B, L-E
If you’ve read my posts you will know that at the end of November John Owen arrived at 501 Green. I was just reading the sermons in volume nine of The Works of John Owen, “Sermons to the Church” and spotted this. Across the centuries, the “prince of the English divines” describes the same experience… Read More John Owen on Preaching
The second phase of my praying life was in and after my conversion. It was a glorious response to what my new pattern revealed to me at that time. I don’t have the exact day, but there was a time as I prayed out the latest crisis and to put if fairly crudely all the… Read More This Praying Life, Phase 2
No, not the Lucasian Chair of Mathematics at Cambridge held by Isaac Newton and more recently by Stephen Hawking, but another “Lucasian” chair. This one is at St. Helen’s, Bishopgate and cheekily named by me for its long time Rector, Dick Lucas. St Helen’s, Bishopsgate is an Evangelical Anglican Church (Church of England) in the… Read More A Lucasian Chair
My return to a life of prayer started slowly in the beginnings of my conviction of sin and culminating in my conversion in 2007-08. When I say, “I started slowly,” I mean my understanding of what prayer truly is. What is prayer? Prayer is the act of forging a connection between two specific points: our… Read More This Praying Life, Phase 1