He reigns, for us, at the right hand of God; He dwells forever in the Heavenly Zion-Sanctuary; He is King and God over those celestial courts which He has purified by His blood. Relish the height of the Mount “not beclouded in smoke” but “happily drenched in the eternally-efficacious blood of the crucified, risen, exalted, glorified, Lord” that cries for saving not for judging! How can we faint, and not endure discipline, as we fix our eyes on Him? 

I’ve been rebuked this afternoon for slackness in the Scriptures – and, at the same time, been thrilled and delighted by a few of the gems that, by grace, with the Spirit’s help, I have mined from a simple, basic, 1-mouse-click Word study of “magnificent greatness” or “majesty” in the Greek Bible.
Magnificence
As I was studying Hebrews 1:1-4, suddenly vistas of truth opened up before the eyes of my heart, to which I had been previously blind – suddenly I came to see a little more of the glory and splendour of the reign of Jesus Christ, our Great High Priest, who by His blood rules all things for the Church from God’s throne in the heights. I rebuked myself, again, for being dull and slow of heart.
The key term was found towards the close of the third verse of Hebrews 1, the introduction in which the writer lays bare the fullness and finality of the revelation of God, given in His Son, which puts the prophets in the shade – the Lord Jesus Christ, having made purification for sins, has sat down at the right hand of the Father in the majestic heights.
He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs – Hebrews 1:3-4.
This is a magnificent greatness which is to be ascribed to Jesus as Jehovah in Dt 32:3.
For I will proclaim the name of the LORD; ascribe greatness to our God – Deuteronomy 32:3
This is the majesty that is declared by David to have been promised and performed by God to and for him, in 2 Samuel 7:21 & 23.
Because of your promise, and according to your own heart, you have brought about all this greatness, to make your servant know it – 2 Samuel 7:21!
And who is like your people Israel, the one nation on earth whom God went to redeem to be his people, making himself a name and doing for them great and awesome things by driving out before your people, whom you redeemed for yourself from Egypt, a nation and its gods – 2 Samuel 7:23?
Read More
Related Posts:

Throughout the whole process, seek to extend grace to the fellow elders that God has designed to lead his church. A plurality of elders is a precious gift of God. Where one elder might be quick, bold, or decisive, others balance him out with gentleness, discernment, thoughtfulness, and pastoral care. And where some elders may be eager to please with great compassion, their fellow elders can encourage them to not neglect biblical principles and to lead with candor and clarity.

How should fellow elders of the same church navigate dissent, discord, and differences? In the early church, an argument arose between Barnabas and Paul that created tension, strife, and controversy (Acts 15:39). Barnabas was eager to reintegrate John Mark as a traveling companion, yet Paul wanted to move on without him, judging him to be unreliable (Acts 15:38). This “sharp disagreement” resulted in one of the most prominent divisions in the life of the early church.
On our own elder teams, the number of issues we can disagree over is legion. Should we observe the Lord’s Supper every week or just once a month? Do we serve wine or grape juice or offer both? If Baptist, do we admit into membership those baptized as infants? Do we hold one Sunday worship service or go to multiple services (or even multiple campuses)? Should we use a team-preaching model or have one main preacher? What’s the ideal age to allow the baptism of believing children? Do we employ one musical style or have a traditional and contemporary service? How long should services run? Do we discipline this recalcitrant member? Do we send this dear family to serve overseas? And on and on.
When instincts differ among elders on the same team, what can we do? How can we preserve plurality, honor divergent views, and shepherd in harmony with fellow elders?
Foundations for Disagreement
We might start with some foundations that can keep disagreements from becoming destructive — and that can also prevent some disagreements altogether.
First, start by cultivating a spirit of genuine trust outside the moment of disagreement. Create space to get to know one another, to spend time together, to grow in gratitude for each other, and to laugh and play together. Learn about one another. Be able to identify the strengths and weaknesses of fellow elders. Gain a deep appreciation of their spiritual gifts and what they contribute to the team. Then give each other permission to speak your minds without repercussion. Seek to cultivate healthy conflict by the kind of open disagreement that neither maligns another’s character nor calls into question his loyalty. Give each other the benefit of the doubt.
Second, develop a robust affirmation of faith for elder candidates. Don’t leave core doctrines up for grabs. Unity on the church’s central beliefs and theology is essential for an elder team’s health. The more robust a statement of faith, the more unity your elder team will have as a foundation beneath your disagreements. This unity will cultivate shared instincts on church life, shepherding, philosophy of ministry, and the mission of the church. If 97 percent of your doctrines, beliefs, and practices are settled, it’s much easier to wrestle together over the remaining 3 percent where differences emerge.
Third, seek to understand one another’s perspectives and experiences. An elder’s history, spouse, friends, background, and education shape his views. What shapes your concerns, conclusions, or inclinations? We all come with different presuppositions, experiences, and ideas. Get them on the table, and be aware of others’ typical blind spots as well as your own. A plurality of elders provides insight, accountability, and protection from going astray.
Moving Through Disagreement
Once the foundation is laid, how does an elder team go from disagreement to moving forward? Here are four questions to ask when wrestling with a particular issue.
1. What does the Bible say?
An elder team should be eager to study the Scriptures together to understand what the Bible says about this issue. This study may not solve our disagreement, but it’s the starting place to bring our ideas in conformity with God’s word. The God-breathed Scriptures are for teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness, equipping us for every good work (2 Timothy 3:16–17).
Read More
Related Posts:

Henry’s book is a fine work, however, as wonderful as the book is, the Alliance has done a great service by taking Method and putting it in form for daily prayers. The free subscription provides a daily prayer addressing any of a variety of subjects with their lengths running to three or four hundred words. For more on the project “Pray the Bible” program see “Behind the Project” on the Alliance website. If you would like to sign up for the daily emails, go to “Sign up for Daily Emails.”

Several weeks ago I subscribed to the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals email series, “Pray the Bible.” The source for this ministry is the more than three-centuries old book by Matthew Henry (1662-1714), A Method for Prayer, with Scripture Expressions, Proper to be Us’d Under each Head. Second Edition with Additions, London: Printed for Nath[aniel] Cliff and Daniel Jackson at the Bible and Three Crowns in Cheapfide near Mercers Chapel, 1710. A quick scan of a few library catalogs having antiquarian collections shows other editions were published in 1713, 1714, 1724, 1737, 1750, 1781, 1797, 1798, and 1882. Further searching would surely find other printings; I could not find a listing for the first edition which would date to 1710 or earlier. The point of this bibliographic information is that Henry’s book on prayer has enjoyed a long and prolific history including more recent titles using it as edited by O. Palmer Robertson, A Sampler from a Way to Pray, Banner of Truth, 2010, and the version used by the Alliance that was edited by J. Ligon Duncan III, A Method for Prayer-Matthew Henry, Christian Focus, 1994.
Matthew Henry is best known for his commentary on the whole Bible which has enjoyed a long publication history in multivolume and edited single volume editions, and his book on prayer takes his copious Bible knowledge and composes the Christian’s supplications with quotes from Scripture. As God has spoken to His people in the Word, so His people should speak to Him with his Word. Henry’s book is a fine work, however, as wonderful as the book is, the Alliance has done a great service by taking Method and putting it in form for daily prayers. The free subscription provides a daily prayer addressing any of a variety of subjects with their lengths running to three or four hundred words. For more on the project “Pray the Bible” program see “Behind the Project” on the Alliance website. If you would like to sign up for the daily emails, go to “Sign up for Daily Emails.”
The header image shows a building in Chester, England that pre-dates Matthew Henry’s time in the city. It is said that “God’s Providence is Mine Inheritance” painted on its timber-frame beam is because the household survived a visitation of the plague.
Read More
Related Posts:

The Bible also teaches that our hearts are born in corruption (Ps. 51:5; Rom. 5:12), thus the members of the family—both parents and children—ultimately need to have their problems solved from the inside out. That brings parents back to the Great Commission. The fundamental need of discipleship is a new heart cleansed from sin. Only Christ can accomplish this work. 

No text of Scripture speaking to discipleship deserves more attention than the Great Commission. That commission, or commandment, is given to disciples (Matt. 28:16) to make disciples (Matt 28:19–20). And Jesus gives the how: Christian baptism and biblical teaching. Before a parent does anything to discipline a child, he does well to pay attention to Christ’s plan for making disciples. Christ’s discipline must characterize our homes. That surely involves the discipline of children in the terms we often think (Prov. 13:24; 19:18; 22:15; 23:13–14; 29:15–17), but it also demands much more of parents.
Without a thoughtful reading of Proverbs in the context of the whole of Scripture, we can (and often do) fall into behaviorism, a secular psychological approach that views human learning as merely a matter of conditioning responses. But Christ teaches us that we and our children are more. We have hearts, spiritual centers of our being, from which our behaviors flow (Prov. 4:23; Matt. 12:33–35; 15:10–20; Luke 6:43–45). The Bible also teaches that our hearts are born in corruption (Ps. 51:5; Rom. 5:12), thus the members of the family—both parents and children—ultimately need to have their problems solved from the inside out.
That brings parents back to the Great Commission. The fundamental need of discipleship is a new heart cleansed from sin. Only Christ can accomplish this work. The Lord, speaking through the prophet Ezekiel, declares, “I will sprinkle clean water on you, . . . give you a new heart, . . . and I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules” (Ezek. 36:25–27). The connection to baptism in the Great Commission is obvious. Whether someone affirms credobaptism (believer’s baptism) or paedobaptism (infant baptism), everyone agrees that baptism is something done for you, not something you do for yourself. It’s an outward sign pointing to the necessity of the Spirit’s work. Christian parents must know this: no true discipleship comes apart from heart change. The starting place of discipleship for our children can’t be separated from baptism.
Read More
Related Posts:

Written by Joel R. Beeke and Christopher W. Bogosh |
Saturday, April 27, 2024
Scotsman, David Dickson (c. 1583–1662), well-known for writing the first commentary on the Westminster Confession of Faith and for his commentaries on the Psalms, Matthew, and Hebrews. When his friends were gathered around his deathbed, one of them asked him when in the throes of a painful death what he was thinking. Dickson replied, “I have taken all my bad deeds and put them on a heap, and I have taken my good deeds as well, and I have put them on the same heap. And I have run away from that heap into the arms of Jesus. I die in peace.”2

God gives dying grace to His people for death’s hour. Some of His people die with little fanfare. They depart this life quietly, serenely, with barely a sigh. For others, the king of terrors is more violent, but Jesus brings them through in the end and gives them the victory. Still others receive special measures of dying grace, so that their deathbeds become their best pulpits. Such was the case with the well-known Scottish theologian, Thomas Halyburton (1674–1712), who died at the age of thirty-seven. To read in his Memoirs the nearly seventy pages of his last sayings, which were recorded by those around his deathbed, is to dwell in the vestibule of heaven. Here is only one example: “Come, sweet Lord Jesus, receive this spirit, fluttering within my breast like a bird to be out of a snare. I wait for thy salvation as the watchman watcheth for the morning. I am weary with delays. I faint for thy salvation. Why are His chariot wheels so long a coming?”1
History is full of tens of thousands of saints who have died victoriously in Jesus with great joy, despite the affliction death brought. Biblical examples, such as those of Paul (2 Tim. 4:6–8) and Stephen (Acts 7:54–60), are well known. So are the cases of many martyrs, such as John Huss (1369–1415), Hugh Latimer (c. 1486–1555) and Nicholas Ridley (c. 1500– 1555), and repentant Thomas Cranmer (1489–1556). Cranmer recanted under pressure from Roman Catholic Queen Mary (1516–1558), but he recanted his recantation, went to the stake, and as the flames crept up his body, he stretched his right hand into the midst of the flames, and cried out: “This hand hath offended”—and died horrifically but victoriously!
Read More
Related Posts:

Somehow (I still wonder how He did it), God pulled me out of this prideful place, and made me see that I was pushing my preferences and not God’s Word. I actually didn’t change my mind about much of what I thought, I just changed the way that I spoke and thought about it. Now, when people ask my advice, I am sure to point them to the Word. Instead of immediately jumping to how I apply God’s word, I give them the Bible, and encourage them to seek the Lord about what He says. 

As a young Christian, I was always right. Its amazing how right I was about everything. I had Bible verses, and you can’t argue with the Bible. I also routinely read my Bible, and, well, let’s be honest, no one around me read their Bible. But don’t worry! Everything I did and said was verbally affirmed to be in humility. So that covered me. Like the saying goes, in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. But a weird thing has happened. The older I’ve gotten, the less “right” I see myself. Actually, I’ve come to see that, while I wanted to be a doer of God’s word (James 1:22), I was actually trying to get others to be doers of my preference.
My Preference
It is scary how simple it is for the devil, not to change the Bible, but to twist it (2 Peter 3:16). This was what he tried to pull over on Jesus: He word-for-word quoted Scripture, but he twisted its meaning. He twisted it at the application. And if we are not careful, we can do something similar. When we read God’s word, there are some universal applications that are directly prescribed by God. “You shall not lie, You shall not steal, etc…” But in the vast majority of Scripture, there are commands to obey and wisdom to be applied in a variety of situations that require Christians to use discernment in their obedience. Here’s where I fell into trouble.
Read More
Related Posts:

You do not have to fear standing before God in judgment if you have made a practice of confessing your sins and standing before the judgment seat of Christ every Lord’s Day: hearing his pardon, receiving his absolution, and being comforted by the knowledge of his love and grace. You will not be idolatrously wed to this present world if you have made it a habit to wholeheartedly give yourself to the Lord’s kingdom on the Lord’s Day week after week.

Tomorrow is the Lord’s Day. We do not know from one day to the next what lies in store for us. Proverbs teaches us to remember that: A man’s heart plans his way, but the LORD directs his steps (16:9), and there are many plans in a man’s heart, nevertheless the LORD’s counsel—that will stand (19:21). Our life is but a vapor that appears for a time and then vanishes away (Jas. 4:14). Moreover, the LORD knows our frame, he remembers that we are dust (Ps. 103:14).
You might expect that our inescapable frailty and and certain mortality would be regularly at the forefront of our minds, but for most people this is not so. Many people never think of their own death or the likelihood that any number of factors—whether pleasant or painful—may intrude to change the plans we made for our future. While this knowledge perhaps should be common to all men, it is a particular mark of God’s saints. If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that (Jas. 4:15). Whereas worldlings will say: Let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die! The believer sees the same inevitability as a reason for piety and obedience rather than self-indulgence. “You only live once” means very different things to those who serve Christ as opposed to those who live to serve only themselves.
Read More
Related Posts:

When Jesus plucks us out of our own ashes, he doesn’t expect perfection—he has already attained that on our behalf (2 Cor. 5:21). We have died with Christ, and he will raise us to life. He has purchased our right-standing with God. Still, he does want to change us, little by little, to love sin less and to desire him more.

The light was dim in my bedroom that night. I knelt, face-down, the fibers of the carpet tickling my nose. The world felt like it was shrinking around me to contain only this room, this moment. I had been blind for so many years, living—no, relishing—in sin. I chased it and held it near to me like my favorite pet. But that night the veil was lifted, and my sin was exposed before me. No longer could I take cover under the guise of being a “good person.”
Tears dropped to the floor as conviction crumbled the hardness of my heart. It was in this crumbling of everything I thought I knew that Jesus found me. As I was pursuing sin, he was unrelenting in his pursuit of me. This was my “go and sin no more” moment. In a blink of an eye, my worldview shifted in alignment with the God who created me, and the trajectory of my whole life changed.
He sought me, he saved me, and there was no way he wouldn’t change me.
A Woman and a Trap
There’s another woman whose life held a similar story. She was merely a pawn in their game—a test and a trap for the Lord Jesus Christ. The scribes and Pharisees discovered her sin of adultery and decided to use it to make a point. To them, her life meant nothing. They didn’t care if she lived or died. Dragging her into the middle of the crowd where Jesus was, they said, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. Now in the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?” (John 8:4–5).
Scripture doesn’t tell us how this nameless woman felt as she stood in front of these men with their threatening looks. Perhaps she was bowed down with the weight of her shame and terrified as she seemingly stared death in the face. Maybe she was imagining what was to come, already dreading the sharp stones striking her flesh. Would God be gracious enough to let one hit her in the temple, ending her life quickly, or would she experience a slow, pelting death? Did she feel utterly hopeless?
The woman waited for the verdict as Jesus wrote something in the dirt with his finger. The Pharisees and scribes kept asking him until finally he silenced them saying, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her” (John 8:7).
In pretending to care about the law and holiness, these men exposed their hard and darkened hearts. They sought to catch Jesus and find him guilty; instead, he caught them. One by one he exposed their sin, and each of them walked away (John 8:9).
Read More
Related Posts:

The pursuit of godliness requires focus, sacrifice, commitment, and endurance. Paul knows that training is a perfect metaphor for Christian obedience—training “for godliness” (1 Tim. 4:7b). This kind of training has value for the present life and the life to come. In other words, there is an all-compassing value to this pursuit. Don’t you want to invest in what matters most? Don’t you want to give yourself—your time, your resources, your energy—to what is of surpassing value?

What goals do you have? Do you have aims for your job, your household, your personal life? Paul thinks you should have an overarching goal, and it’s the goal he wrote about to Timothy.
“Rather train yourself for godliness; for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come” (1 Tim. 4:7b–8).
Paul employs the metaphor of an athlete who is training to compete. And he recognizes that bodily training “is of some value.” There are bone and muscular benefits, there are mental health benefits, and there are organ and immune system benefits to regular exercise.
Why is bodily training of only “some value”? Because graveyards are filled with people who ate well and went regularly to the gym. Bodily training cannot defeat death. So while bodily training is of some value, it is not of ultimate value.
Bodily training involves focus, sacrifice, commitment, and endurance. Let’s think about each of these terms.

Focus—You need to know why you’re training. What’s the goal? Why are you putting yourself through the rigor of training? Do you have your eye on the prize?
Sacrifice—If you’re in training mode, you can’t live like those who aren’t training. Your mindset is different. You forgo what inhibits your training. You let your goal shape your behavior in the present. This behavior involves sacrifice—

Read More
Related Posts:

God doesn’t need to conform to our feelings, or our biological ability to mutilate our bodies. God has made and declared what is good. It is good for men to be manly, and good for women to be womanly. Each culture WILL look slightly different, but that doesn’t change the created order of God, and sometimes even cultures (like Western hyper-sexuality culture) as a whole can reject these created distinct categories that God has made of male and female.

Social Media Statement
This post is in response to a conversation that was started on social media.
Person #1: “If God made you a male, that’s not a mistake. If God made you a female, that’s not a mistake. Saying any different is insulting a perfect creator. Read your word.”
Person #2: “God made you a brunette, yet you are now a blonde. God gave you bad vision, yet you fixed it with glasses. God gave you crooked teeth, yet you straightened them with braces. Trans people change the outside to match the inside like you do. Sit down. Jesus said to.”
Response
Both of these are appeals to the individual in the present and are divorced from the Biblical arguments for male and female creational order.
Adam and Eve in their created state were individuals, each made with distinct roles, responsibilities, and relational unique attributes. This is all pointed to clearly in Genesis 1-2, and reinforced in the failure of both in their roles, responsibilities, and relationships in Genesis 3.
I’m not a male because of my inside, or my outside in a vacuum of my own understanding or interpretation of my feelings. I’m male for the same reason my wife is female. God has made humanity as male and female. This created order is specific and God-ordained. Boys are boys, and girls are girls. This is not a result of any desire, perspective, or input from humanity. God’s created order is not changed as a result of the fall. Although the fall has greatly impacted all of humanity, the fall has not somehow changed the created order of the universe. The fall has had tragic consequences, but the fall has not reordered or fundamentally changed how God has made and ordered humanity. We, as humans, are male and female in continuing fashion reflecting the created order of God, albeit now with much suffering and strife due to the fall and our sin (both original sin and our personal individual sin).
After the sin of Adam and Eve, boys are still boys, and girls are still girls. We are now fallen image bearers of God and in need of saving from the utter destruction we bring upon ourselves through sin. By God’s grace, sinful boys and girls can be saved to live forever as redeemed boys and girls. It is God who defines what sin is, God who defines what is needed for restoration from sin, and God who defines the created order of humanity: male and female he created them (Genesis 1-2).
The creator defines the usefulness and purpose of a created thing. Nowhere in the scriptures, by explicit statement, referential idea, or extrapolated consequence has God relinquished His position as creator of humanity. A hairdryer doesn’t have the ability, capacity, or right to say it’s a piano, toaster, or space rocket because it feels that way. The hairdryer was made as a hairdryer for the use, purpose, and pleasure of the maker and owner. God is the maker and owner of humanity. God has created humanity male and female and it is categorically beyond humanity’s ability, capacity, or rights to say otherwise.
To disassociate the pattern of who we are from the created order in Genesis 1-2 is a subtle “unhitching” and disbelief in the continuing pattern of God’s creation in the human race. We are made male and female, anything besides this is a result of the fall – note – that includes varying folks who are born with various physical handicaps, disabilities, or malformations.
Read More
Related Posts: