Reformation21

A Personal God and a Good World: The Coherence of the Christian Moral Vision by Ronnie P. Campell Jr. and David Baggett B&H Academic, 2024 256 pages, paper, $34.99 I recently discovered a linguistic quirk of the Spanish language that has fascinating repercussions for the way we should think of...

Many have strong opinions on the amount of time a pastor should take to prepare his weekly sermon, with many affirming that roughly 20 hrs is not just normal but advisable. We’ve probably seen pastors piling up their commentaries on the book they’re preaching on (with an almost obligatory social...

When I was a Southern Baptist pastor, all I heard about was discipleship. It was their "thing," almost to a fault. When I moved into the Reformed world, I never heard anything about discipleship. Perhaps my experience is an anomaly but gauging from some conversations I’ve had with a variety of...

William Boekestein, Finding My Vocation: A Guide for Young People Seeking a Calling (Jenison, MI: Reformed Free Publishing, 2024) 154pp. US$16.95 Reviewed by Guy Waters God commands us to “labor and do all [our] work” “six days” a week (Exod 20:9). That command alone tells us how important our work...

The weight of loneliness hit me really hard a few weeks ago. I couldn’t explain why. I live on the same property as my family and see them daily. Our small, flourishing church plant provides plenty of weekly fellowship and ministry opportunities. I work at a doctor’s office where I have growing...

Chaplain Mike Gilson in the Spiritual Care Service unit of San Diego’s Kaiser Permanente Zion Medical Center shared about his visits with a Vietnamese patient and husband who both spoke little English. The wife had terminal cancer, but later on to the chaplain’s surprise while doing his rounds he...

My Favorite Books of 2024 Daily Doctrine by Kevin DeYoung This is my pick for the Book of the Year. DeYoung has taken a rather unique and refreshing approach to a volume of systematic theology. It is composed as a year of daily readings (5 per week). And in terms of categories he does not skimp...

When considering the qualifications for elders, “able to teach” is often recognized as the one qualification uniquely required for the office (1 Tim. 3:2, Tit. 1:9). Certainly, the unique role of elders centers on “the ministry of the word” (Acts 6:4). But another qualification is often missed or...

‘After the hymn, the minister will ascend the stairs into the pulpit for the Scripture reading, pastoral prayer, and sermon.’ What role does the physical pulpit have in a local church? For most of my life, I attended churches where the pulpit was moved around, wheeled in, carried out, or was a...

Imagine a young man meets a woman on a dating website. He sees her picture and is infatuated, but upon meeting her things don’t go well. She says she doesn’t like baseball, but the man does, so he insists that she does too. She says she prefers nights in, but the man is convinced that she actually...