Written by J. V. Fesko |
Sunday, November 27, 2022
Pray and seek contentment where the Lord has placed you in his holy providence. Put your nose to the grindstone, work hard, and leave the results up to him. Whether in plenty or in want, seek to praise Christ in all situations, and don’t compare yourself to others. Pray that you’re faithful to what Christ has called you to do. 

In my pre-parent life, I used to have time to run a few triathlons—sprints, mainly. One of the things that I found personally discouraging was the fact that the race event staff would write your age on your calf muscle with a large waterproof marker. At first, it didn’t bother me—I would be cycling or running and I’d see 56, 72, 40, and a host of other numbers higher than my own as I passed them by. As I progressed in the race, however, I quickly realized that for as many numbers higher than my own that I was passing, there were probably more numbers higher than mine passing me by! I saw one woman with 68 on her calf sail by me like I was standing still. It was a bit humbling to have someone double my age smoke me.
I felt a similar sentiment when I was in seminary and later graduate school. There I sat at my desk as my 27th birthday passed me by and I felt like I was standing still. I was still in school, hadn’t done anything significant in my life, and was feeling like many others were passing me. I was sitting in my windowless basement office, single, in a foreign country eating dry cereal for lunch because I couldn’t afford much more. It didn’t help that I knew that John Calvin wrote the first edition of the Institutes by the time he was 27.
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First, he claimed that the Bible was written in a style to excite and inspire human imagination, not to persuade the intellect. Second, a proper reading of Scripture requires peeling back the layers of phrases and metaphors. In other words, the Bible did not record miracles but reported events robed in hyperbole and exaggeration. The seeds of Spinoza’s doubts later blossomed in nineteenth-century liberal interpretations of the Scriptures. Some New Testament scholars claimed, for example, that Jesus’ feeding of the five thousand was no miracle. Rather, Jesus stood before an opening of a cave, which was concealed by His long, flowing robe. His disciples then fed loaves of bread through the sleeves of His robe. The feeding was no miracle but rather a sleight of hand—a well-intentioned ruse meant to inspire selflessness.
In his Theological-Political Treatise, Spinoza argued that the will of God is synonymous with the laws of nature. On the other hand, a miracle is a violation of the law of nature. God’s will is unbreakable; therefore, miracles are impossible. Some philosophers, such as David Hume, simply dismissed miracles because of disbelief. Hume maintained that the testimony of Christ’s resurrection, for example, was likely false. Such testimony was therefore invalid for establishing the historicity of the resurrection. In the present, New Testament scholars such as Bart Ehrman make similar claims. Ehrman defines a miracle as improbable. Historians, however, can establish only what probably occurred in the past. Thus, a historian can never ascertain the historicity of a miracle. Regardless of the variations, the simple truth behind the rejections of miracles is unbelief—a rejection of God’s Word.

Written by J. V. Fesko |
Monday, August 1, 2022
Accountability is only as good as the truth. If you want to grow in your sanctification, you have to be honest with Christ, yourself, your family, and your church. When you’re honest and admit your sins, your need for Christ, and your need for assistance, then you can begin to deal with your need for repentance and greater sanctification.

Part of my pastoral ministry involved making regular visits with the members of my congregation. My elders and I did our best to visit every household in the congregation once a year. There were and are a number of benefits to doing this. First, it allowed me as the pastor to get to know my sheep. It is very difficult to get to know people if the only interaction you have with them is on Sunday when you spy their faces from the pulpit or when you see them across the buffet line at church lunch. I would spend a portion of my visit with the household getting to know them. Second, it was an opportunity for me as the pastor and my elders to be present in a home before there was trouble. It is a bit difficult to enter into a home for the very first time when you have to deal with a problem. People might not trust you, know you, or be willing to listen to your counsel because you have not established much of a relationship with them. True, regardless of these things, members of a church have the biblical responsibility to submit to their elders (Heb. 13:17), but knowing your sheep certainly helps.
However, one of the things that I quickly noted was that when holding members accountable to their profession of faith, accountability was only as good as the truth. What do I mean? On a number of occasions I would observe a family and instinctively know that something was wrong. I saw certain behavior that led me to believe that there were spiritual problems. When an unmarried couple, for example, is very “hands-on,” in public, showing a great degree of public affection, then chances are such behavior is merely the tip of the iceberg—what they do in public is a fraction of how they’ll conduct themselves in private. I visited with such people and flat out asked them about their sexual purity, and I typically received answers, that on the face, were correct—they denied wrong-doing.
I also typically asked the members of my congregation, “Are there any significant struggles, or sins, that we can assist you with, pray for you, and hold you accountable?” I typically received negative replies to this question with the assurances that all was well. Apart from any specific hard-evidence, and only unfounded suspicions, I had no other choice than to take people at their word.
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Written by J. V. Fesko |
Saturday, June 4, 2022
You can all too easily get into a mentality of worrying about trying to top your last sermon rather than faithfully preaching the text and relying upon the Spirit to empower you and apply it to the hearts of your congregants. By no means am I advocating slothfulness in the pulpit. Work hard to prepare your sermons, but be yourself in the pulpit, and most importantly, preach the text—preach the gospel of Christ.

When students cross the threshold and enter the hallowed halls of seminary, those who enroll in the Master of Divinity program usually have one big goal in mind—they want to be preachers. This is a perfectly natural and understandable goal, one to which all MDiv students should aspire. Seminaries, therefore, invest a good amount of time in the curriculum training students how to exegete the Scriptures, prepare, and deliver a sermon. Preaching courses, for example, focus upon whether the student was faithful to the Scriptures, whether his sermon had a clear structure, whether his illustrations were appropriate and helpful, and whether his delivery was smooth. All students struggle with different elements of sermon delivery, and this is to be expected. While the ability to preach is a God-given gift, this doesn’t mean that the gift can’t be honed or improved.
Be Yourself
One of the ways that students try to short-circuit the learning process is by listening to sermons by well-known preachers. I know of ministers who do this as well. On the one hand, listening to sermons isn’t a crime and can be a spiritually beneficial thing. On the other hand, if you’re listening to a sermon as a substitute for your own necessary exegetical spadework, or because you don’t want to meditate upon the text to develop your own material and illustrations, listening to a sermon can be a bad thing. I was once at a meeting of presbytery where a fellow colleague was delivering the opening devotional. One of my colleagues sitting next to me leaned over and whispered in a concerned tone, “I heard this very same sermon several weeks ago at a Banner of Truth conference!”
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Written by J. V. Fesko |
Friday, April 8, 2022
I think the “be somebody” versus “do something” divide is a really important question to ask for many things in life. All too often we can get caught up in titles and the desire for prestige. Do you want to be a big steeple pastor or do you preach God’s word? Do you want to win marathons or find enjoyment and satisfaction in running? Do you want people to think well of you or live in a manner to gain the approval of your heavenly Father?

Over the years I have had many students come into my office and ask me about pursuing doctoral studies. One of the first questions I ask them is, “Why?” I ask this question because many students don’t know that pursuing doctoral studies is a long, difficult, and burdensome path. Once you finish your master’s degree you have to learn two modern foreign languages (like Latin and French), study for the Graduate Record Exam, apply to different institutions, get in, move, take two to three years of seminars, sit for comprehensive exams, spend a year or two writing a dissertation, defend it, and spend a lot of money and time. Don’t get me wrong—if you’re called to this path, then nothing will keep you from it. The fire in your belly will drive you to pursue your dream. But I ask students why they want to pursue a doctorate because I want them to think about their motivations.
If students reply that they want to teach at a college, then that’s great and it’s a good reason to pursue a PhD. But if they tell me that they want to learn more about theology, I press them for more information.
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Written by J.V. Fesko |
Wednesday, January 5, 2022
If we find ourselves at a loss for words unable to think of things for which to be thankful, we should turn to the Psalms. The psalmist knew how to thank the Lord for many different things, whether in times of joy or sorrow.

One of the common characteristics we find in the apostle Paul’s letters is the number of times he gives thanks to God in prayer. The opening of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians is an example of this:

I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. (Eph. 1:16)

Paul was a man forgiven of much and so his prayers were punctuated with thanksgiving for all of the blessings he received from God. Paul’s thankfulness finds precedent especially in the Psalms, what Dietrich Bonhoeffer called the prayer book of the Bible. In this regard, Psalm 136 stands out as it repeats a continual refrain, “Give thanks to the Lord,” and then lists many different things for which the psalmist was thankful. Can we say the same about our own prayers?
It’s easy to forget to thank God for his blessings in our lives.
To be honest, this is sometimes a shortcoming in my own prayers. I’m quick to take my needs to Christ in prayer but almost as equally quick to forget to thank him for the blessings in my life. Perhaps part of my own forgetfulness on this account is due to the fact that I don’t regularly take brief inventory of God’s blessings in my life.
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Written by J. V. Fesko |
Friday, October 15, 2021
Yes, in the present day widows often have greater financial resources at hand—they have insurance policies, retirement savings, and the like. Many don’t need the financial support of the church. But caring for widows is not merely about financial support. Think about it: if you have a woman who was married for forty or fifty years and then her husband dies, her life has taken a dramatic turn. There are so many little things in life that she now has to do herself—take care of her home, car, or handle household administrative affairs, for example. She may, or may not, be able to handle these things on her own.

Within any decent-sized congregation there are bound to be some who are widows, usually those that are older, but in some cases there might be younger widows as well. In the world outside the church, many might look upon widows as a regular part of life. Death is common, and thus widows don’t necessarily merit any undue attention. But such should never be the case within the church.
The Bible has a number of things to say about widows. God instructed Israel not to mistreat widows (Exod. 22:22). The book of Ruth showcases the undying love of a woman for her widowed mother-in-law and God’s greater love through his providential care for both widows, Ruth and Naomi.
The Psalmist tells us that God is a “father to the fatherless and protector of widows” (Ps. 68:5). And the New Testament has a number of passages dedicated to the instruction and care for widows, but James’s words stand out most prominently to me:

Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world. (1:27; cf. Acts 6:1ff; 1 Cor. 7:8; 1 Tim. 5:3ff)

If you want to see pure Christianity in action, you can witness it in the care for widows and orphans.
For churches, therefore, caring for widows and widowers is of vital importance.
I dare say that the quality of care for its widows and widowers is a barometer of the spiritual health and maturity of a church. If a church neglects its widows, then something is definitely amiss.
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Written by J. V. Fesko |
Thursday, September 16, 2021

For those who believe that we should excise all philosophy from theology do not realize that all of us use philosophical concepts and terms whether we realize it or not. He who believes he is free from philosophy is the likely unwitting adherent to the philosophical teaching of a defunct philosopher or theologian. Rather than run from natural knowledge, or philosophy, we should seek God’s wisdom wherever we find it. Subject to the magisterial authority of Scripture, true philosophy never conflicts with sacred theology.

What does Jerusalem have to do with Athens? This was the famous statement made by Tertullian when he challenged the supposed connections between theology and philosophy, the naturally obtained wisdom of humans. From one vantage point, Tertullian echoes the teaching of Scripture. Recall the words of the Apostle Paul: “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2:14). Philosophical knowledge can never serve as a ladder to heaven. For all of their learning, philosophers have never been able to glean the message of the gospel through the power of their own thought or from reflecting on the creation. The saving knowledge of Christ and his gospel is solely the provenance of special revelation and the sovereign regenerative work of the Holy Spirit. To the natural person, the gospel is a stumbling block and folly (1 Cor. 1:23).
The Queen and the Handmaid

But does the antithesis between earthly philosophy and the heavenly knowledge of salvation completely define the relationship between the two disciplines? Is there no function whatsoever for philosophy in theology? While some may latch on to Tertullian’s statement and try to excise all philosophy from theology, historically, the church has admitted a carefully defined role for philosophy in relation to theology. Protestant theologians have acknowledged that theology is the queen of the sciences. That is, theology has a regulative function among the various disciplines of knowledge because of its supernatural source. This is not to say that theology speaks exhaustively to every single conceivable discipline but that it nevertheless serves as a referee to ensure that other disciplines do not cross divinely given moral and ethical boundaries. The Westminster Confession (1647) captures the magisterial role of theology when it states: “The supreme judge by which all controversies of religion are to be determined . . . can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in Scripture” (I.x). Good theology has its roots in the rich soil of Scripture and thus serves as the queen of the sciences. But theology’s magisterial role does not therefore preclude the responsible use of philosophy. Protestant theologians recognize that theology is queen of the disciplines and that philosophy is a handmaiden, an ancillary tool that the church may use in the task of doing theology. Or in other words, there is a role for a scripturally subordinated use of natural revelation in concert with special revelation. In the words of the Belgic Confession (art. II), we can use God’s two books, the books of Scripture and nature as we formulate our biblical doctrines.

How have theologians used philosophy in theology? Two examples illustrate the role of philosophy in theology. Despite the fact that Tertullian wanted to distance Jerusalem from Athens, he nevertheless employed philosophical categories such as substance to distinguish the three persons of the godhead from their commonly shared essence. 

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