assistance

“Therefore, become imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Ephesians 5:1-2). In much Jewish thought the idea of imitating God was anathema. With the initial sin of Adam and Eve in “desiring to...

How can the believer reconcile the suffering, trials, and persecution they are guaranteed with the astounding assurance in Psalm 121 that the Lord will keep them from all evil? Some might misinterpret this passage and claim a false gospel of health and wealth. Others may question God’s wisdom when...

About one year ago while lying in bed I whispered to God in desperation: “ I am so afraid.” It was the most heightened sense of dread I had ever experienced (and I and my household had already made it through some pretty horrific times over the last half decade). Then the voices of children from a...

How do we think about the Old Testament saint’s believing experience in relation to our own? Perhaps we think better of them than we do of ourselves! Or maybe we use them as an excuse for our bad behavior. For instance, how many times has David’s name been invoked as an excuse for unfaithfulness?...

George Herbert – Pastor and Poet What would the English poet George Herbert have to say at the toppling of our monuments? Maybe something similar to what he said in 1633, while contemplating the monuments to the dead inside his church’s crypt. In the end, he concluded, the dust and earth to which...

Lydia Mackenzie Falconer Miller – An Inquisitive Woman Some time ago, I wrote an article about Hugh Miller, a Scottish geologist and author who was greatly esteemed by both scientists and common readers during the perplexing times of the Scottish religious Disruption and of Darwin’s new scientific...

The more we have explored the theme of grace as it unfolds in different ways throughout Scripture, the more we have discovered its variegated beauty and its far-reaching implications for our lives as Christians. It is more pervasive than we often imagine and, as we have noted in an earlier post,...

Paul Gerhardt and His Songs of Confident Hope In 1943, the German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote from his lonely prison cell, “I’ve lately learnt for the first time to appreciate the hymn, ‘Beside thy cradle here I stand.’ Up to now I hadn't made much of it; I suppose one has to be alone for a...

To know how to act, we need to know what story we are in. Without suggesting that anyone wants to create a false narrative about the corona virus, the media can lead us to think we are in a short story when we are in a novel. In a sports-crazed nation, we hear that opening day for Major League...

Jonathan and James are happy to introduce our listeners to another great book written by Benjamin Shaw, who—for many years—was professor of Hebrew and Old Testament at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary…but recently took a position as Professor of Old Testament at Reformation Bible...