Crumbs from the Master's Table

R. T. France: It may be something of a surprise to those brought up in the tradition of biblical exposition to find that the biblical writ...

Luther's first thesis from his Ninety-Five Theses : "When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, 'Repent' [Matt. 4:17], h...

Luther: Dear Lord, awaken us that we may be prepared to receive your Son with joy when he comes and to serve him with a pure heart. Gracio...

My study looks like the end of a semester with three final term papers well underway. The sight of this sorry mess calls to mind Prov. 14:...

I'm on the lookout for good poetry about seeing Jesus by faith at the Lord's Table. I want something to help with expressing this gl...

A helpful group of resources on depression, mental illness, and suicide may be found here .

Question 73: Why doth the Holy Ghost call baptism the washing of regeneration and the washing away of sins? Answer: God speaks thus not wi...

Why do I languish, thus, drooping and dull,                     As if I were all earth? O give me quickness, that I may with mirth       ...

"A successful hermeneutic is a consistent interpretative procedure yielding a consistent understanding of Scripture that in turn confir...

"God, society, family, individuals, sex, property. It is an order of values that western culture has more or less completely reversed....

"Obedience ought not to be complicated , either by the competing claims of other gods (the moral maze of polytheism), or by the confusi...

N. T. Wright speaking on genuine faith as resurrection faith: The main point of 'faith' in [Hebrews 11], as has often been emphasi...

Christopher H. J. Wright on how OT prophecy works: To expect that all the details of Old Testament prophecies have to be literally fulfill...

Haddon Robinson: Homileticians have not given accurate application the attention it deserves. To my knowledge, no book has been published ...

Christopher J. H. Wright on whole-Bible methodology: When we take the Old Testament history seriously in relation to its completion in Jes...

"God had only one son and he made him a missionary."— David Livingstone

Which of the following may Evangelicals disobey? Or where do Evangelicals allow for disobedience? Or perhaps putting the questions that way ...

Leland Ryken on the classics: here . I rejoice as one who has found great spoil!

I'm enjoying thoroughly sitting at Professor Dan Block's feet in an exegesis class on Deuteronomy at Wheaton College. And one of the...

Luther: O Lord God, I am weak and fearful. I flee evil and do all I can to guard myself against it. Nevertheless, I am in your hands as I ...

For the love of God, I have a question for Christians. A serious one. It's not meant to be rhetorical.  The question comes out of a ...

People "decide far more problems by hate or love, or lust or rage, or sorrow or joy, or hope or fear than by rational argument" (C...

Ross Douthat: Indeed, this is perhaps the greatest Christian paradox of all—that the world's most paradoxical religion has cultivated ...

"Though Christians often bemoan the separation of church and state and claim angrily that the separation of church and state is not in ...

In Part 3 of Jonathan Edwards’ work Some Thoughts Concerning the Revival of Religion in New England , [1] he answers criticisms of the revi...

"Hatred of sin as sin, not only as galling or disquieting, a sense of the love of Christ in the cross, lie at the bottom of all true sp...

In John Piper's sermon this last Lord's Day, he spoke of how the moral landscape is different now from when he first became a pasto...

More on Sinai: This [covenant at Sinai and its priestly purpose] is an ideal picture. One serious problem remains. It is not Pharaoh this ...

Prayer the Church's banquet, Angels' age,              God's breath in man returning to his birth,              The soul in pa...

Dempster on the significance of Sinai: After the exodus narrative the Israelites move to Mount Sinai. Mount Sinai stands in the way of Can...

Here is some perspective on the task of the gospel going global into all the nooks and crannies of unreached or unengaged people groups. ...

If you were looking for a good sermon series on Ecclesiastes, look no further. Pastor Doug O'Donnell, senior pastor of my local church, ...

Would you like to dance? Lovely. "Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, w...

Piper on professionalism and the pastorate: We are afflicted in every way but not crushed, perplexed but not driven to despair, persecute...

What does professionalization in the pastorate look like? Professionalization carries the connotation of an education, a set of skills, an...

A good lesson in the school of prayer: The knowledge of God's Father-love is the first and simplest, but also the last and highest les...

Kent Hughes : Gossip involves saying behind a person’s back what you would never say to his or her face. Flattery means saying to a pe...

Luther: O heavenly Father, God and Father of my Lord Jesus Christ and God of all comfort, I thank you for revealing to me your dear Son, J...

Murray on Edwards' God-intoxicated ministry: For Edwards, the reality of communion with God belongs to the very nature of redemptive C...

Here Doug Wilson ably, biblically, and persuasively argues that debating is a Christian duty. Well, if the man Jesus is to be the believer...

In the fifth chapter of Owen's work On the Mortification of Sin , he discusses what does not pass for truly killing sin. He refers to fi...

Luther: O my dear Lord Jesus Christ, you have said: Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be ...

Here's a new catechism produced by Tim Keller and Sam Shammas—  New City Catechism —adapted from Calvin's Geneva Catechism, the West...

"Edwards' whole ministry, as that of the Puritans, was based upon the conviction that the usefulness of a preacher's work is in...

The upcoming theology conference at Wheaton College on  "Christian Political Witness"  will take place on Apr.  4-6. Evangelical...

"Fairly regularly, we see debates over the meaning of character in leadership and public life. Most of it is nonsense. We know that cha...

I'm convinced by  these five reasons . So our family will be reading through the Heidelberg yet again, this year on the Lord's Day. ...

Piper on cowardice in the pastorate: We are surrounded in America by people like [the chief priests and elders in Matt. 21:23-27]. Instead...

In an exegesis class on Deuteronomy at Wheaton College, Professor Dan Block was making the point that Deuteronomy is didactic material, not ...

"If you try to do deeds 'for the glory of God' without treasuring the glory of God in your heart, it is a sham. The word hypoc...

"Parents who constantly remind us that we belong to Christ, ministers who week by week pronounce absolution, fellow believers who commu...

D. A. Carson: For all that the web makes information gloriously accessible, it has two huge shortcomings. First, it is so democratized tha...

D. A. Carson: The essence of all critical thought, in the best sense of that abused expression, is the justification of opinions. A critic...

In 2 Kings 20, Hezekiah falls ill and draws near to death. Isaiah the prophet tells him to set his house in order to prepare for his demise ...

A witty word for writers from Peter Leithart.

In an introductory chapter on "a literary approach to Old Testament theology" in his book Dominion and Dynasty , Stephen Dempster ...

Regarding what biblical theology is, many have commented, even lamented, that the definitions on offer abound. Paul R. Williamson proffers o...

I'm toying with the idea here of regular posts of a then-versus-now variety. I'm not doing this because of the belief that the past...

Containing echoes of Rom. 14:7-8, here's a Lutheran prayer when facing death: My dear God, if you want this to be the hour of death, l...

Edwards in his diary dated Jan. 21, 1723: "I do not spend time enough in endeavoring to affect myself with the glories of Christianit...

What is biblical theology ? As many have pointed out, well, it depends on who's answering the question. There are a variety of ways bibl...

John Piper on the practice of Christian meditation: What does meditation involve? The word meditation in Hebrew means basically to speak ...

Resources  galore on political philosophy. Rejoice!

Look  here .

It's that time when people are gearing up for the new year ahead with resolutions. In my judgment, this gearing up can be good, or it ca...

Solomon Stoddard on preaching:  "We are not sent into the pulpit to shew our wit and eloquence but to set the consciences of men on f...

Consider me odd, but I love creeds. A brother who filled the pulpit for our pastors this past weekend recited the Athanasian creed in his fi...

Piper on reading the Scriptures: If your longing is to be spontaneous in the way you commune with God, then build discipline into your Bib...

Here's a free  course  on Romans taught by Professor Doug Moo of Wheaton College. I took a Greek exegesis course on Romans with him last...

"The pastor's job is to look at the Bible and work hard to understand what's in it, and then work hard to make it understandabl...

Martin Luther: We pray especially for the government under whose care and protection you have called us. Bless it with success and prosper...

On this Thanksgiving, there's so much for which to be thankful. Given recent happenings in the life of the Wencels, I'm especially ...

It's time for a blog break. As some of you know, I'm a practicing physical therapist. That's my vocation. While practicing physi...

A Lutheran prayer for God's protection from all evil: Dear Father, give us our daily bread, good seasons, and health. Protect us from ...

From Calvin's will, made on his deathbead: I give thanks to God who had mercy on me. . . . He delivered me out of the deep darkness of...

A helpful and insightful interpretation for Paul's use of Deut. 25:4 in 1 Cor. 9:9 may be found  here . And the methodology modeled ther...

A Lutheran prayer for the glory of God in the home: Dear God, you have given to me my wife, children, house, and property. I receive these...

Commenting on Gen. 4:26, Edwards speaks to what begins to happen when God's Spirit moves among men: We see by experience that a remark...

From "The Minister and His Greek New Testament," originally published in The Presbyterian 88 (February 7, 1918), Machen speaks pr...

Here are a few answers. J. I. Packer succinctly gives us the standard stuff: Typology . . . looks into Old Testament patterns of divine ...

Luther on hermeneutics: I acknowledge no fixed rules of interpretation of the Word of God, since the Word of God, which teaches freedom in...

Here's trying my hand at translating Psalm 29. I've attempted to bring out something of the structure, flow, force, and poetics of t...

From The Presbyterian Guardian , February 25, 1945, John Murray pleads for "concentrated, sustained, devoted study of the Bible, the k...

Here's a quotation from Edwards' A History of the Work of Redemption that might surprise you: By God's righteousness here [I...