Letting the King Come In, Day 4

By James Boice

Theme: Vindication from God

In this week’s lessons we learn how this psalm serves as a Messianic psalm, as Jesus enters into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday as Israel’s King.

Scripture: Psalm 24:1-10

2. Vindication from God. What will such a person find when he or she comes to God? The answer is in the second part of the worshiper's qualifications, and it is twofold. First, she will find “blessing from the LORD." Second, he will find "vindication from God his Savior" (v. 5).

2. Vindication from God. What will such a person find when he or she comes to God? The answer is in the second part of the worshiper's qualifications, and it is twofold. First, she will find “blessing from the LORD." Second, he will find "vindication from God his Savior" (v. 5).

Think and Act Biblically from James Boice is a devotional of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. It is supported only by its readers and gracious Christians like you. Please prayerfully consider supporting Think and Act Biblically and the mission of the Alliance.

Letting the King Come In, Day 3

By James Boice

Theme: Part Two: Who May Come to God?

In this week’s lessons we learn how this psalm serves as a Messianic psalm, as Jesus enters into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday as Israel’s King.

Scripture: Psalm 24:1-10

Who may come to such a great king to pay homage? This is no mere earthly monarch, whose presence would be awe-inspiring enough, but rather the thrice holy God. Who dares come into his holy presence? The answer to this question is in verses 3-6, and it is both wonderfully complete and profound. It falls into two parts.

Who may come to such a great king to pay homage? This is no mere earthly monarch, whose presence would be awe-inspiring enough, but rather the thrice holy God. Who dares come into his holy presence? The answer to this question is in verses 3-6, and it is both wonderfully complete and profound. It falls into two parts.

Think and Act Biblically from James Boice is a devotional of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. It is supported only by its readers and gracious Christians like you. Please prayerfully consider supporting Think and Act Biblically and the mission of the Alliance.

A Spiritual Brotherhood

by Nick Batzig • August 08, 2017

"God ordinarily does great things when ordinary ministers of the gospel are bound together as blood brothers, to live and die together. Then God has in His hands the kind of vessels He is pleased to use as vessels of honor for his glory."

A number of years ago, Sinclair Ferguson made the observation that "the Puritan movement of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries...underlines for us the significance of spiritual brotherhood in the movements of the Holy Spirit." The more we study the writings of the great pastors/theologians of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the more we find a close interconnectedness--not to mention a mutual sharpening--that existed among the Puritan pastors/theologians. Perhaps, this has been one of the most overlooked aspects of the Puritan movement as a whole.

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Letting the King Come In, Day 2

By James Boice

Theme: Part One: The Earth Is God’s

In this week’s lessons we learn how this psalm serves as a Messianic psalm, as Jesus enters into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday as Israel’s King.

Scripture: Psalm 24:1-10

I have pointed out in dealing with earlier psalms that it is not always easy to tell which psalms are Messianic, that is, which psalms actually prophecy something about the Messiah to come. This is because they are often couched in images based on natural situations or events. For example, they may speak of a king. But we wonder: Are we to think of the king as King David (or one of the human descendants of King David), or is this rather a veiled reference to the King of kings, that is, to Jesus? Since it is not always easy to tell which is the case, we have to be cautious when we draw Christian allusions or teachings from these essentially Jewish poems.

Think and Act Biblically from James Boice is a devotional of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. It is supported only by its readers and gracious Christians like you. Please prayerfully consider supporting Think and Act Biblically and the mission of the Alliance.

Letting the King Come In, Day 1

By James Boice

Theme: A Clearly Messianic Psalm

In this week’s lessons we learn how this psalm serves as a Messianic psalm, as Jesus enters into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday as Israel’s King.

Scripture: Psalm 24:1-10

I do not know if Psalm 24 has a setting in any event we know of from the Old Testament. But if there is an historical setting, I suppose it is the occasion on which David brought the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem from its temporary resting place in the house of Obed-Edom the Gittite (2 Sam. 6). In symbolism, the God of Israel was understood to dwell between the outstretched wings of the two cherubim mounted on the lid of the Ark. So when the Ark was brought to Jerusalem for the first time, it would have been appropriate to have composed a hymn such as Psalm 24 for the occasion. The title of Psalm 24 identifies it as a psalm “Of David.” So David may have composed it himself for the ceremony.

Think and Act Biblically from James Boice is a devotional of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. It is supported only by its readers and gracious Christians like you. Please prayerfully consider supporting Think and Act Biblically and the mission of the Alliance.

Reformation Preaching and the Modern Mind

Posted on Sunday, August 6, 2017 by Carl Trueman on Postcards from Palookaville

Seven theses on preaching.

This week I am giving the Moore College Lectures in Sydney.  The title of the series (with due homage to the great Peter Taylor Forsyth) is Reformation Preaching and the Modern Mind.  My hope is to use the Reformers, especially Luther, as a source for building a theological understanding of what preaching actually is.

 

In my first lecture, I concluded by offering the following seven theses which I will be defending (sometimes indirectly) in the remaining five:

 

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The Psalm of the Cross: Part 2, Day 5

By James Boice

Theme: “You Shall Be My Witnesses”

In this week’s lessons we learn how the sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ described in the first part of Psalm 22 turn into a statement of great victory.

Scripture: Psalm 22:22-31

But if Jesus has done what is needed for our salvation, and that our good works do not in any way contribute to it, someone might ask, "What, then, is left for us to do?” Nothing, except to believe in God's word and trust Jesus. Jesus himself said this. When some of the Galileans asked him on the occasion of his multiplication of the loaves and fish, “What must we do to do the works God requires?" Jesus replied, "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent” (John 6:28, 29).

Think and Act Biblically from James Boice is a devotional of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. It is supported only by its readers and gracious Christians like you. Please prayerfully consider supporting Think and Act Biblically and the mission of the Alliance.

The Psalm of the Cross: Part 2, Day 4

By James Boice

Theme: “It Is Finished”

In this week’s lessons we learn how the sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ described in the first part of Psalm 22 turn into a statement of great victory.

Scripture: Psalm 22:22-31

The last verse of the psalm contains the words "he has done it" or, as Jesus seems to have understood the sentence in his quotation of these words from the cross, "it is finished" (John 19:30). In Psalm 22 the words are linked to the proclamation of "his [that is, God's] righteousness to a people yet unborn," so we know they concern the gospel. What is finished is the atonement by which the righteous demands of God for sin's punishment have been fully satisfied and the righteousness of God is now freely offered to all who will believe on Jesus.

Think and Act Biblically from James Boice is a devotional of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. It is supported only by its readers and gracious Christians like you. Please prayerfully consider supporting Think and Act Biblically and the mission of the Alliance.

A Brief Response to Professor Gehrz

Posted on Wednesday, August 2, 2017 by Carl Trueman on Postcards from Palookaville

Over at his blog at Patheos, Professor Chris Gehrz has responded to my most recent post at First Things.   Rod Dreher has provided a good reply but I offer here just a couple of brief comments.

 

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Preparing to Entertain

by Megan Hill • August 02, 2017

Christians should not reduce hospitality to Instagram-worthy tableaux. If we are motivated in our hospitality by a desire to impress others—or to use them for our own social advancement (Luke 14:12)—we sin. But I’m not convinced that inviting people to a delicious and carefully presented meal necessarily makes biblical hospitality into something worldly and inferior.

The first Sunday on which I invited guests for lunch after church, the oven settings failed. We all arrived at the house, anticipating the mouthwatering aroma of baked ham and instead opened the door to . . . nothing. The oven was cold, the ham even chillier, and my smile of welcome instantly froze on my lips.

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PLACE FOR TRUTH

What David Needed Most

Reformation 21

“He fell today; I may fall tomorrow.”