law of God

For many of us, the fall signals a new and busy season of ministry. This is often an exciting time, but if we’re not careful, we will be so busy that we will forget what is most important. We will be tempted, after experiencing God’s greatness, goodness, and grace, to not stop and celebrate it in...

At face value, the 9 th commandment could be read as merely a prohibition against committing perjury or lying under oath. However, this commandment encompasses so much more. According to both the Westminster Shorter and the Baptist catechisms, “The ninth commandment requires the maintaining and...

The fifth through tenth of God’s Ten Commandments focus on preserving and protecting persons. Here, the eighth hones in on safeguarding and maintaining a person’s possessions. In the reiteration of the Decalogue for the second generation of the covenant about to enter the Promised Land, Deuteronomy...

Recently, Christians have agonized over accounts of false devotion to talented but corrupt church leaders. In outwardly successful churches and ministries, leaders have covered up sin, blamed victims, and blocked investigations to protect gifted but fatally flawed pastors and their ministries. To...

Names. We all have one, or two or three, maybe even four or five! Names identify us, don’t they? At least to some degree. Yet, we recognize that we are more than merely our name(s). My parents could have decided to name me by any other name besides David, and yet I would still be me. Our human...

“You shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:4, Deuteronomy 5:7). Over half a century ago, the late Martyn Lloyd-Jones, minister at Westminster Chapel, London, aimed the penetrating light of the first commandment at modern idolatry, saying, “There are many people today who never darken the...

According to the Westminster Confession of Faith, “The moral law doth for ever bind all, as well justified persons as others, to the obedience thereof….neither doth Christ, in the Gospel, any way dissolve, but much strengthen this obligation” (WCF, 19.5) Obviously, the Westminster Divines were not...

Some passages of Scripture are better known than others. How can they not be? The Lord’s Prayer is recited across the landscape of Christendom along with the Twenty-third Psalm and the Ten Commandments. But there are others. In fact, it’s interesting how the popular conception of a passage can...

Solomon, in wanting his son to pursue and know wisdom, instructs him to “consider the ant” (Proverbs 6:6). The command is to observe and learn the ways of this small but impressive creature. What impressive wisdom does the ant teach us? Diligent. Hard. work. In short, the ant is productive. And...

In her rich fantasy novel, Piranesi , author Susanna Clarke has the main character, whose name is also the book’s title, keep a journal for each year he has been living in the Beautiful and Kind House. As described on the back cover, the rooms of the House “are infinite, its corridors endless, its...