Reading with M’Cheyne

"It is because you made offerings and because you sinned against the LORD and did not obey the voice of the LORD or walk in his law and in his statutes and in his testimonies that this disaster has happened to you."--Jeremiah 44:23 Scripture is the only rule for faith and practice, because it gives...

"And the word of the LORD was rare in those days; there was no frequent vision" (1 Sam. 3:1). This is a very disturbing statement - at least, it should be to anyone who cares about the Word of God. In the days of Samuel, there just wasn't much of God's word available. It is not that folk did not...

"Priests guilty of sexual misconduct in the sanctuary" No, this is not a headline from one of today's sleazy newspapers (though it could well be); it is a headline that characterizes the goings on in Shiloh where Eli two reckless sons (ESV "worthless men" v.12) are having their way with female...

God's people may find themselves in extraordinary circumstances, but God's grace is always sufficient and powerful to enable us to persevere and display extraordinary acts of godliness. Such is the lesson of the first chapter of 1 Samuel where Hannah's desperate circumstances (her childlessness)...

If, yesterday, we saw in Ruth 2 a depiction of godly woman, Ruth 3 gives us the counterpart depiction of a godly man, one that emerges in the unbearably tense situation to which he was exposed. For, at dead of night, the text announces one of the most exquisitely nuanced statements in Scripture: "...

As Ruth finds herself gleaning in the field of a near-kinsman by the name of Boaz, he, in turn, is immediately impressed with her - enough to begin making inquiries about her (2:5, 14). What is it about her that has caught his eye? First is the meekness and gentleness of her spirit. She bows before...

We find that Paul has made his way to Athens, the great center of classical learning as well as pagan idolatry. What we discover is that rather than railing at the Greeks or separating from them, Paul engages them and boldly proclaims the Gospel of Jesus, the resurrected judged and savior. Not only...

This is another important chapter for understanding Presbyterian and Reformed practice. What we find here is this basic principle: households are counted among the visible people of God based on the faith of the household head. The first example of this is Lydia (16:11-15). Paul and his missionary...

I never tire from telling our people that Acts 15 is one of the key texts for Presbyterian and Reformed polity. And that is because in this text we see that the church is not merely local and universal, but it is also regional. What happens is this: some men came to Antioch from Judea and were...

Every time I've ever read this text, I've thought how well it describes ministry. In particular, we have here two wrong responses to ministers and their ministry of the Word. First, people respond wrongly to ministers when they idolize them. As Paul and Barnabas are at Lystra, where "they continued...