Grant Van Leuven's Posts

Grant Van Leuven's Posts

Lately, I’ve been swamped with temporary though important projects consuming my time and attention. Feeling guilty about delaying or limiting focus on more regular needs, I recalled a booklet in a seminary class: Tyranny of the Urgent, by Charles E. Hummel. The primary lesson from this brief...
Legend has it that the great Reformer Martin Luther once threw an ink well at the Devil who had been incessantly accusing him. [1] Whether or not this is true, Luther certainly had remarkable fits and fights with the ancient foe who seeks to work us woe. And often, this involved stinkering at Satan...
Recently, a Reformed brother told me that he was nearly driven by depression to suicide due to years of wrongful, incessant attacks upon him and his wife by other family members teaming up with the government. He confessed if he was an Arminian he likely would have succumbed, but his belief in God’...
Think of a cup being filled to the brim—or inflating a children’s play castle or a basketball to its entire design. The thing being pervaded is what it is, but it is in the process of functioning fully and living up to its potential and peak performance until completely full. Such gets at the sense...
Dr. Wayne Spear writes, “The collection for the relief of famine suffered in Jerusalem occupied Paul’s attention and organizing skills for several years during his third missionary journey. Since the apostle, with his great zeal for evangelism, gave his time and energy to an international and...
“There is a great deal of comfort in skepticism,” writes Gordon H. Clark. “If truth is impossible of attainment, then one need not suffer the pains of searching for it… Skepticism dispenses with all effort… Skepticism is the position that nothing can be demonstrated.” [1] Sadly, rather than...
This Church Discipline series focused on guiding members in need of repentance by formal levels of rebuke. But the hopeful prayer of elders at each point of censure along the way is that it need never go further, especially not to the final act of excommunication. Proverbs 25:11-12 reads, A word...
There are times within a disciplinary process that some in the church must be temporarily postponed from their normal opportunity to take part in the formal fellowship or service of the saints. The status of those so suspended is not revoked (as with excommunication from membership or deposition...
Reformed, confessional theologians often point out that discipline is one of three signs of a true church. [1] Highlighting this distinguishing mark, my seminary professor once rhetorically asked our class, “How many true churches are out there?” The Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF) chapter 30...
Author Jim Belcher illustrates his chapter, “The Struggle Within,” [1] with a compelling psychoanalysis of Robert Lewis Stevenson’s classic novel, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. [2] Dr. Henry Jekyll, a reputable scientist wanting to enjoy being exclusively good without the lure of...