Christward Collective

It’s the month of Thanksgiving. Walk into any store and you’ll see all things in varying shades of orange, brown, and red. Turkeys, gourds, and colorful leaves decorate every establishment. Our children will dress up as Pilgrims and Native Americans and act out the first Thanksgiving at...

The word marvel isn’t used much in regular, day-in and day-out speech. In my experience, most of the instances in which this word occurs are related to comic book characters on the TV or movie screen. But what does it mean to marvel at something? The word comes from a Middle English form of...

Everyone loves a sunny day; and, everyone hates a cloudy day, right? After all, we have a singular medical classification for the negative effects of cloudy days on the human psyche. We tend to speak of the beauty of any given day in relation to how much of the sun and sky we are able to see...

Repentance: uncomfortable and avoided whenever possible (at least that is the way Christians often look at the practice). So much so, that Martin Luther’s first of 95 theses—that “the entire life of believers [is] to be one of repentance”—can sound, even to Protestant...

Samuel Miller was the second professor at the Theological Seminary of the Presbyterian Church in Princeton, NJ--what is now Princeton Theological Seminary. He was one of the most prolific and able of 19th Century Reformed theologians . Among the most beneficial of his works are those that focus on...

The Apostles’ Creed is a 2,000 year old confession of the basic contours of the Christian faith. From the earliest beginnings of the New Testament Church, the Church began articulating a “pattern of sound words” (2 Tim 1:13) of what Christians believe. When leading our...

The woman had conspired with her husband to commit a slew of treasonous murders. Now, as she looked at her hands, she wondered if she would ever again have a clear conscience. “What, will these hands ne’er be clean?” She asked. “Here’s the smell of the blood still. All...

The local church that I have been called to pastor consists largely of young military families with small children and recent empty-nesters/early retirees. This dynamic makes for both constant turnover as well as high travel frequency during the year. At times, our church feels a little less like a...

Caffeine. Late-night TV. Smartphones. Sugar. After-hours work e-mails. What do they have in common? With stunning success, we use these things – and more besides – to regularly rob ourselves of a good night’s sleep. But the problem is deeper than entertainment, technology, or any...

One area in which the Westminster Standards are somewhat unique from other Reformed documents is their inclusion of the doctrine of Adoption. Adoption stands as its own chapter in the Confession (Ch. 12). By giving it a full chapter the WCF emphasizes what is routinely an under-appreciated doctrine...