Featured Articles

My journey to this article As I begin, I should probably start with a disclaimer. I suspect one reason I was asked to write this article is that I have ten children (yes – ten!).1 If that somehow makes me an “expert” in raising children, I would disagree. Perhaps one could say there’s been plenty of practice – when you get it wrong with one, you might hope to improve [...]

Husbands are called to love their wives – and they must do so as Christ loves the church. As is often noted, the love of Christ is a sacrificial love, and even as all Christians ought to live in such a way, so too do husbands. They must love their wives with tender and faithful affection, with a love that is gracious and selfless. At the same time, being the [...]

I recently visited a friend I hadn’t seen for more decades than I care to admit. He lives with his aging father, and when I asked him how he spent his days, he said, “Taking care of Dad.”I don’t know where he gets his income from (not from social welfare benefits, I’m pretty sure), but it sounded like taking care of Dad and getting him to his medical appointments had [...]

Where have our attention spans gone? How can we go about improving our self-control to focus better on God, his word, and our own physical, mental, and spiritual health? We need to be less entertainment driven and more reality driven. Our focus seems to be on the here and now rather than delighting in the Lord and having our eyes focused on His second coming. What practical steps can we [...]

From nomination to Office:
the path to serving Is the election of an elder or deacon like an election for political office? While we may speak of election and voting and office, the appointment of an office-bearer in the church is principally different from that in politics. Through the years I have heard many misperceptions of what is taking place in the choosing of office-bearers, all the way from “the person [...]

Introduction Charles Dickens wrote in his 1859 book, ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ a famous opening line, "it was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” This sentiment is expressed throughout the book of the Psalms. The main reason the Psalms are dear to God’s people is they live in reality alongside us as a truthful, loving, encouraging Word from God in all we experience in life. [...]

“The delightful study of the Psalm has yielded me boundless profit and ever-growing pleasure…” So Charles Haddon Spurgeon states in the preface of his classic commentary on the Psalms, ‘The Treasury of David’1. Of course, Spurgeon knew that King David did not write all of the Psalms, but the prince of preachers was correct in saying that the book of Psalms is a ‘treasury’. A treasury is a place or [...]

One of the pleasures of ministry is catching up with people for a coffee and a chat. One of the places I have used for such visits is a former Baptist chapel which is now a coffee shop. The vestiges of its former role as a place of worship can still be seen by those who visit. High on the wall behind where the pulpit once stood (the till has [...]

In some ways, Hebrews is a book about people who quit… and the people who want to follow them. It’s a book in which the author is keenly aware of the temptation to return to the ‘better days’ of the past.Why? Because rather than make life easier, faith in Christ appears to have made life a lot more difficult. Is Jesus really that important? This is a question, incidentally, that [...]

As Christians we confess that “those who truly believe in the Lord Jesus, love him sincerely and strive to live in all good conscience before him may in this life be certainly assured that they are in a state of grace and may rejoice in the hope of the glory of God” (WCF 18.1). Many Christians I know live with such a hope in their hearts. They go to their [...]