This blog is Pastor Jay's weekly musings about God's Word, God's world, and God's call to our culture. We hope they encourage, challenge, and inform you. Sign up to recieve them in your email.
We have witnessed the gradual demise of Sunday evening ministry. The questions for this article are why has this happened and what should the church's response be. Before getting to the heart of this article, I want to clear away some circumstantial realities in the lives of churches and people. We need to touch on these here so that they don't clutter the main points b...
Keep ReadingSeveral weeks ago our church was looking at a verse of Scripture which seems to unsettle, if not all out destroy, the concept of assurance. Jesus says in Matthew 10:22 "but it is the one who has endured to the end who will be saved." The question of incompatibility goes like this: "How could assurance of eternal life ever be possible if endurance is an evidence of salva...
Keep ReadingOne of the realities of raising young children is that you begin to be asked a lot of "why" questions. Why do we brush our teeth? Why do we pray before we eat? Why do we have to go to bed? The benefit to this is you find yourself having to justify things you perhaps have not thought through in a long time. That is a good thing. Useless your response is to rely unthinking...
Keep ReadingIrony has a special place in my heart. I think it has to do with the way truth gets displayed in spite of people's deceptive or idiotic ways. For example, the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown hand-wrote a letter of condolence to a mother whose son had died in Afghanistan, but unfortunately he misspelled the deceased's surname. A newspaper published a blistering articl...
Keep ReadingCemeteries are creepy. I lived across from one growing up and much of the time it was just a normal part of our scenery. This cemetery was a part of the church we went to so we often walked to church using the road that went through the cemetery. That wasn't a problem, most of the time. But we also went to church Sunday evenings. When fall rolled around, and darkness rus...
Keep ReadingI am regularly amazed, and that amazes me. One thing that regularly amazes me is the seemingly limitless variety of animals and plants. Now, I am not special in my appreciation of animals and plants. But I really do relish the stunning abilities, habits, organization, colors, shapes, and intricacies of both animals and plants. And I, amazingly so, find myself regularly s...
Keep ReadingThere is a short story called Harrison Bergeron that I remember reading in high school. The plot is set in future America where there is total equality in every area of existence. Beautiful people must wear ugly masks, strong people must be weighed down by weights, and intelligent people must wear ear pieces that blast sounds in order to break their concentration. This ...
Keep ReadingThis post is a portion from an "Ask Pastor John" podcast where John Piper speaks to the issue of righteous, godly anger. In a previous blog that you can read here, I tried to think through the dangers of anger and how to manage it. To bring in more balance, this list from Piper is exceptionally insightful about the place that godly anger should have in our lives. We are ...
Keep ReadingPride is a disease. It is another name for idolatry. Wherever it is, destruction is not far behind. Humility, on the other hand, is glorious. It is a grace-created attribute that is bold, joyous, and life-giving. Many things can and should be said about both pride and humility. But for the sake of brevity and for punch, here are quick thoughts on the contrasts between pr...
Keep ReadingIt is so counter-intuitive to think that weakness is an asset. Weakness is supposed to be a liability. But that is just one of many reversals that we find in Scripture. The poor become rich. He who loses his life finds it. The first will be last. On and on it goes. At some point each of these reversals have to be explained because, as already mentioned, it just doesn't m...
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