What does it mean to live out the gospel? In order to answer this question, we need to understand what the gospel is. The gospel is the good news. Literally the Greek word, euaggelion, translated gospel, means “good tidings.” The good news is that sinful man by faith, has been made right with God, he has been justified through the blood of Jesus Christ. God became man and took the just punishment due to us and gave to us the righteousness of Jesus. (Rom. 3:24, Phil. 3:8-9, etc.). We are justified by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, and it...
Theology
Making Disciples
The Great Commission, Matthew 28:19-20, is probably the single greatest set of verses that outline what the duty of the Christian is in regard to his or her neighbor. Jesus calls us to be disciple makers. Often time, we live like it’s the Great Suggestion and not the Great Commission. “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (ESV)...
Back in Colorado
Greetings all, we are back in Colorado now, beginning my last year of seminary. It has been awhile since I have posted (about 3 months actually!) . I am going to try and be better about posting to our blog. For those of you who didn’t know, Sarah, Abby and I spent the winter in Springfield, IL. We made some wonderful friends while there and were able to spend some time with Sarah’s parents who have been home from the mission field. Last week was the first week of classes here at the seminary and we completed our first...
BibleWorks Vocabulary for Page Kelley’s Biblical Hebrew
Greetings all. As a student at Sangre de Cristo Seminary, I am taking Biblical Hebrew this semester. We are using Page H. Kelley’s Biblical Hebrew An Introductory Grammar as our textbook. I use BibleWorks 7, I like to use the vocabulary module that is built into the program (I used it, and still use it for Greek). I could not find anyone else that had created a Hebrew vocabulary module for this textbook, so I created my own and I would like to share it with anyone who is interested in it. Click here to download the file. I...
Sleep? Who needs it?
I am beginning to learn that sleep is really overrated . . . or at least that’s what my daughter would have us believe. It is amazing the amount of changes our lives have undergone in the past 2 weeks. We went from just the two of us to the three of us and our entire life now seems to revolve around the eating and sleeping schedule of Abigail (last night it seemed like every half hour). This is not news to “seasoned” parent, but this is expected from a brand new infant. Nevertheless, no matter how much I...
Presbytery Meeting
Last week I attended the Presbytery of the Southwest (PCA) meeting with Pastors Phil Kruis and Luke Evans, Parker Tenet who is the University of Arizona RUF minister, and Ruling Elders Dean Saxton and Paul Marien in Alamogordo, NM. I really enjoy attending Presbytery, call me crazy, but I am one of those weird guys that actually enjoys it. Presbyterianism is, I believe, the most biblical model and the most effective for church leadership, disciple, and shepherding. It is a beautiful thing really! At this meeting there was a lot of laughs, a lot of business was done, and...
The Sovereignty of God
The other day I had an interesting discussion. Really, it was a debate on the sovereignty of God. It was said to me: “God only knows about what is going to happen, but does not control things.” Well, naturally I reject this line of thinking and said so, but it got me to thinking about God’s sovereign control of the world and man’s responsibility. For most people, the idea that we are not in total control of our lives, but that God is in control, is incongruous. In the discussion I had, it was said that a loving God...
Preaching Concept
John Piper has a really interesting article on preaching on concept and not simply contextualization. The adventure of preaching sometimes is taking the Biblical truths we work through in the study and bringing it out in a helpful way in the pulpit. There are many books and theories as to how best preach. I think it is safe to say that the key to Biblical preaching is through great preparation and pray. Here is a quote from Piper’s article. We must pray and preach so that a new mental framework is created for seeing the world. Ultimately, this is...
Jeremiah 31:31-34
Sermon I preached on December 30, 2007
Reformed Worship
Some of our friends from church recently read an article on Reformed Worship. Sarah and I attend, Rincon Mountain Presbyterian Church, a PCA Church in Tucson. The issue of proper worship should be a question that all churches should deal with. It seems that with worship, most of the battles are about music tastes. What I like or don’t like when it comes to music should not be the issue, as important as that is, but the real issue is what is worshipful to God. Many in Reformed churches, it seems, have been moving further and further away from...