Here is an online classroom version of Tedd Tripp’s great Shepherding a Child’s Heart. This is the go-to parenting book for many in conservative, Reformed circles. I would strongly encourage every parent to read it . . . or at least watch and discuss these videos.
Archive for December, 2024
Shepherd your child’s heart
Posted in Family & Family Issues, Family Religion, Fatherhood, Motherhood & Childbearing on December 30, 2024| Leave a Comment »
Manton, “Preference of Duties: Morals Before Rituals”
Posted in Audio Resources, Conscience & Casuistry, Legalism & Antinomianism, Natural Law, Puritans & Puritanism on December 30, 2024| Leave a Comment »
This small treatise reflects something of the high watermark the Puritans left the Church in Christian ethics & casuistry, written by the Westminster Divine, Thomas Manton. Access the audio here. He does a masterful job of exposing a subtle, legal attitude so often prevalent in the church, that outward, religious observances must always and without qualification supersede concerns of human life and well-being. A colleague of mine shared it with me during the Covid church closure mess of 2020. It was quite relevant then and remains so today. A must-read for every Reformed pastor if not every serious Christian. And visit the complete audio library here.
Your names are written in heaven!
Posted in Holy Scripture on December 30, 2024| Leave a Comment »
Against Spangler’s “Race Realism”
Posted in Cults, Cultishness, Heresy, Culture, Postwar Consensus, Nationalism, Race, Kinism, "Race Realism" on December 29, 2024| Leave a Comment »
I found this an able and persuasive rejoinder to Michael Spangler’s extreme kinism. Vogel is responding to a series of articles originally posted here. In my armchair studies of Christian nationalism, kinism, and the postwar consensus critique, there is quite a range of opinion: the good (or at least, acceptable), the bad, and the ugly. One thing is for sure: Spangler doesn’t fall within the first. Mark him, and avoid him.
Shields: Study the unity of the Church!
Posted in Catholicity, Communion of the Saints, Connectionalism & Conciliarism, Covenanters, The Visible Church, Vox Patrum on December 23, 2024| Leave a Comment »
“Therefore all the true Members [of the Church] should study Unity; This Truth of the Oneness of the Catholick Visible Church, being the Ground of all the Union and Communion in the Ordinances thereof. Cant. 6.9. My Dove, my Undefiled is but One, She is the only One of Her Mother. If the Church be One, Divisions and divided Communions in her must either inferr that this one Church is many, made up of Heterogeneous parts, or that the Church divided from is not apart of that one Church, and hath broken off from that which compacts the Body together.”
Alexander Shields (1661-1700)
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Whole doctrine catholicity | “Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners” (Song 6:10)?
Warfield, “Paul on Women Speaking in the Church”
Posted in Church Order & Discipline, Feminism & Egalitarianism, Gender & Sexuality, Paternalism & Patriarchy, tagged 1-corinthians, bible, christianity, church, jesus on December 23, 2024| Leave a Comment »
The following is an article written in 1919 by Dr. Benjamin B. Warfield. Prof. Warfield was an orthodox theological heavyweight who taught at Princeton Theological Seminary in the early 20th century, until the institution tragically succumbed to theological liberalism in the late 1920s. He here addresses the question of Paul’s words prohibiting women to speak in the assemblies of the church. A digitized version can be accessed here.
Enter not into judgment with thy servant
Posted in Holy Scripture on December 23, 2024| Leave a Comment »
The Baptist’s pressing question
Posted in Audio Resources, Free Church of Scotland, Macleod, John (1872-1948) on December 16, 2024| Leave a Comment »
Absolutely tremendous article (sermon?) in the public domain by Prof. John Macleod (1872-1948). I recently recorded it as I prepared for a recent message of mine on Luke 7:18-23, “John Baptist hath sent us unto thee, saying, Art thou he that should come? or look we for another?” (Verse 20.) You won’t be disappointed. Here’s a little “handful of purpose.” And view the entire audio library here, with more Macleod recordings and many others.
Parish missions: household evangelism
Posted in Missiology, Parish Theory & Practice, Thomas Chalmers on December 16, 2024| Leave a Comment »
Door-to-door parish missions “may not introduce Christianity within the precincts of every family; but it brings the overtures of Christianity or of Christian instruction to the door of every family. The lessons of the gospel are brought by it to every door; and our experience is, that, when once brought thus far, in the vast majority of instances an entry is permitted—and so these lessons are carried by it across almost every threshold” (Thomas Chalmers, Works, 17:333).
Take church to them! ‘House-churching’ the heathen
Posted in Gospel Tactics, Missiology, Parish in American Context, Parish Theory & Practice, The Gospel & the Poor, Vignettes from the Old Parish Way, tagged bible, christianity, church, faith, jesus on December 16, 2024| Leave a Comment »
The following extract comes from Thomas Cochrane’s, Home Mission-work; Or, Twenty-five Years in a Mission Field (1873; pp. 51-52). Chalmers earlier advocated these exact same tactics years before. In my parish mission efforts, I’m already seeing the profound wisdom and insight of this policy. If they don’t yet come to church, then (assuming they let you in the door) bring church to them!
“In all Territorial districts there will be found many not only living in entire neglect of the sanctuary, but many of that number who will scarcely be persuaded by prayer and pains to avail themselves of the privilege To meet such cases, the devoted missionary will often be found to try and bridge over the difficulty by taking the church to them; sometimes, perhaps, even taking possession of the home of the neglectful, and making a church in their house. The effect of such little gatherings is often very blessed indeed. By these meetings there is not only opened a way for bringing the Gospel to the very homesteads of the careless and prayerless, but it is also, under GOD, a very fruitful source of augmenting the central gatherings.
“One of the most useful members of the Mission relates, as his own experience, how by this agency especially he was won to the public ordinances of the church. He was ill to gain over. Many months of prayerful effort were spent, but “by keeping at it,” with God’s blessing on the means, he was at last enlisted in the good cause ; and how useful he has been since in gaining others, the future only can reveal. How devoted he has been cannot be told.
“The services at these fireside gatherings should not, as a general rule, be lengthened above an hour, for many reasons. Mothers cannot conveniently give longer time from household duties. Short telling addresses at such meetings will ordinarily be most useful and acceptable. The grand object being to deal chiefly and closely with those who have not been accustomed to much serious thinking about religious subjects, anything fitted to weary and repel should be carefully avoided. How all-important to leave a good impression, and, by this short pithy service, to beget a thirst for the more extended, if not more formal, services of the house of God! It would not be an easy thing to say how many members of the church first found their footing towards the sanctuary through the influence of these district meetings. They will not only prove useful-almost essential-in the forming of a Territorial congregation, but will be of immense benefit after it has been formed, both as a means of dealing with the neglectful members of the congregation, and of reaching those beyond the pale of the church.”
West Port Experiment 