Biblical interpretation

As I think about my church family, so many older and younger men and women, as well as covenant children, come to mind. I have come to know and love them, and pray for them often. Just like in families, there ’ s a lot that can happen in church families. Behavior isn ’ t always the best, and...
Young children love family reunions more than the adults who host them. Children are focused on who will be there, who will they play with, who will tell the best story, who will remember their name, who will lift them high off the ground to say, “Look how big you are!” It is good we start life as...
Reading the Psalms can be or should I say ought to be existential. In other words, we should be able to experience through the Psalmist. We ought to be able to read a Psalm and say, “That describes where I am!” The Psalms, unlike other portions of Scripture, are supposed to function in that way...
The Psalms of Ascent is a collection of Psalms in the Psalter. There are other collection or groupings of Psalms. This collection is not unique in that sense. However, this collection was a well-worn collection. This dog-eared collection was taken by pilgrims to Jerusalem three times per year on...
It’s easy to grow weary of proclaiming Christ, especially if it doesn’t seem to be making a difference in the lives of those we teach. We are prone to think that our toil is in vain if our children or spiritual children don’t seem to be maturing in Christ. Yet Colossians 1:24-29 teaches us that...
Imagine for a moment you are going on a pleasant hike through some unnamed wood. You hear from a distance what sounds like rushing waters, babbling over rocks. Nostalgic sounds of sloshing water against the rivers edge begin to fill the air, till’ finally you reach it - the bank of the river. How...
Unconditional election, when rightly understood, is one of the most freeing doctrines for the under shepherd to embrace and one of the most assuring doctrines for the Christian to hold. It is beautiful because it reveals the beauty of our God whose grace is sovereign and whose mercies are new every...
Hermeneutics is the study or practice of interpretation, and it’s what humans cannot help but do. Every moment of our waking hours we interpret, which is to say that we assign meaning or significance to all that we experience. We do this either consciously or unconsciously on the basis of what we...
With much ground to cover, only a brief introduction will do. In our discussions of many theological topics, the via negativa , or the negative way, is often helpful to properly elucidate a particular subject. By specifically asking what a doctrine or concept does not mean, we place fenceposts and...
Jonathan Gibson has gifted the church a wonderful book titled, I will build My Church: Selected Writings on Church Polity, Baptism, and the Sabbath , published by Westminster Seminary Press (2021). I say that Gibson has gifted the church, but he is the editor and not the author. Who is the author?...