Crumbs from the Master's Table

"Zeal without prudence is rashness; prudence without zeal is cowardliness" (Thomas Watson, Body of Divinity , p. 173).

"To take hold of the Son and to believe in Him with the heart as the gift of God causes God to reckon that faith, however imperfect it ...

"The success of the gospel for which [the Puritans] yearned was bound up with their trust in Christ. They never gave way to the feeling...

In 1519 Martin Luther wrote a "Personal Prayer Book" to help people know how to pray in the midst of so much confusion about what ...

"When in 1 Corinthians Paul said that a man should examine himself, he spoke only of adults because he was speaking about those who wer...

Luther: I acknowledge no fixed rules for the interpretation of the Word of God, since the Word of God, which teaches freedom in all other ...

"Backbite (vt): To speak of a man as you find him when he can't find you" (Bierce, The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary , 12...

"Over the gates of Plato's school, it was written: 'Let no one who is not a geometrician enter.' But very different is the ...

The issues are different for us today from what Jonathan Edwards was addressing in the shortcomings or faulty views...

The Heidelberg Catechism is golden. We're teaching it to our children. And the first question is the sweetest and most precious of them...

Commenting on Dan. 1:8–16, Sinclair Ferguson reflects: Some Christians are heroes in their daydreams only. The characteristic mark of such...

Commenting on Nebuchadnezzar's strategy of defeating Jerusalem, as recorded in Dan. 1:3–7, Sinclair Ferguson observes: Nebuchadnezzar...

So the Wencels discovered recently via ultrasound that another girl has joined our family. That makes us a family of six. Two boys and four ...

"The commission may have application to the church generally, but the commission belongs particularly to the disciples, and to all thos...

"The goal of spiritual leadership is that people come to know God and to glorify him in all that they do. Spiritual leadership is aimed...

"Catechising is the best expedient for the grounding and settling of people. I fear one reason why there has been no more good done by ...

With all the buzz about doing evangelism in the church today, it would be helpful if the church exercised a bit more insight and genuine nei...

"If a 'disability' really only becomes a problem in one setting—our factory-model K–12 system—I’d challenge that l...

"Budget and plan for an ordinary span of years, but in spirit be packed up and ready to leave at any time" (J. I. Packer, Affirmin...

Commenting on Ecclesiastes 4, David Gibson says: If you can live in this world in such a way that the person or people beside you—your f...

"Zeal is a mixed affection, a compound of love and anger; it carries forth our love to God, and our anger against sin in an intense deg...

Batter my heart, three-personed God . . . Take me to you, imprison me, for I, Except you enthrall me, never shall be free, Nor ever chaste...

"The farmer plowing his field, the craftsman producing his goods, and the sovereign capably judging and governing are as much God's...

"All those who have the responsibility and duty of teaching the church of God must forget the favour and approval of the world; if they...

"Not only is suicide a sin, it is the sin. It is the ultimate and absolute evil, the refusal to take an interest in existence; the refu...

"He who knows Christ aright holds him fast, embraces him with both arms, is completely taken up with him, and desires nothing beyond hi...

"We should do our best to find ways to use the whole Psalter [in corporate worship]. We should say or sing the puzzling and disturbing ...

Speaking of the righteousness of faith that God imputes to us through Christ apart from works, Luther says this of its surpassing worth: C...

The famous Rom. 6:23 reads: "For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" (tr...

Our baby boy is going to be baptized next weekend at College Church in Wheaton. We're looking forward to his being baptized into Christ ...

Oftentimes we hear of, or people pray for, the blessing of God in a vague and hazy manner. We ask for God to bless us, or to bless the ...

"The great contest of heaven and earth is about the affections of the poor worm which we call man." —John Owen,  The Grace and D...

Dick Lucas: In the long term I think being a preacher, missionary, or leading a Bible study group in many ways is easier. There is a certa...

So I'm going to go ahead and start blogging again. At least some. It's been good to take a break from the blog and many other things...

This post is just an update for this blog, which has been all but abandoned by its overseer. I post to say that much has come to pass in rec...

I continue to take an extended blog break after the birth of our second daughter. But I plan on plunking away again (as furious as ever?) so...

                       Holiness on the head,                Light and perfections on the breast, Harmonious bells below, raising the dead ...

The following is a pattern for praying that I've developed to help me and my wife to pray biblically and cover the ground that prayer s...