Posts by Steven McCarthy

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Prayer Tips: When to Pray

Steven McCarthy
Sep 2, 2021
In the early days of his Christian walk, someone said, “I just don’t seem to have time to pray!” A mentor responded in a gentle tone with a stubborn and convicting principle: “you make time for your priorities.” Yet, the question of when to pray is a potent one in the distractedness and business of...

Blogging Through the Golden Book: The Life of a Christian Man

Steven McCarthy
Apr 12, 2021
I remember the first time I saw John Calvin’s personal seal—an outstretched hand holding a heart—in a hallway on the campus of Calvin College, now University, in Grand Rapids. Surrounding the upheld heart are the words of his motto, in Latin or English: Cor Meum Tibi Offero, Domine, Prompter et...

Enabling the Lame Man

Steven McCarthy
Mar 3, 2021
I enjoy good children’s books, and not just to read to my children, but because they can be beautiful, fun, and moving. Oh the Places You’ll Go by Dr. Seuss is one of my favorites. It contains a page halfway through that is dedicated to the Waiting Place, drawn in dreary shades of grey, blue, and...

Justification and Preaching

Steven McCarthy
May 23, 2020
The familiar words of Isaiah 40:1-2 call to mind the sonorous strains of Handel’s Messiah: “‘Comfort ye, comfort ye my people,’ saith your God. ‘Speak comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her … that her iniquity is pardoned.’” They are also suggestive of the preaching task. In fact, the famous...

The Ordo Salutis: Sanctification

Steven McCarthy
Mar 30, 2020
“For this is the will of God, your sanctification,” (1 Th 4:3) [1] St. Paul writes to a group of mostly non-Jewish Christians in Thessalonica who had formerly worshiped idols and casually participated in a culture steeped in sexual promiscuity. Sanctus is the Latin word for “holy”. The English word...

Humiliation & Exaltation: The Procession of the Holy Spirit

Steven McCarthy
Feb 22, 2020
After rising from the dead, ascending into heaven, and being enthroned at God’s right hand, Christ poured out the Holy Spirit on the church. The significance of this event cannot be exaggerated. It is the culmination of Christ’s exaltation short of his second coming. It is here that every benefit...

Humiliation & Exaltation: Christ's Burial

Steven McCarthy
Feb 11, 2020
Following his death on the cross, Scripture affirms that Jesus was buried. All four Gospels included an account of his burial, [1] and it is mentioned in both the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds. But why is this fact included in every Gospel and in brief summaries like the early catholic creeds? What...

The Ten Commandments: The Sixth

Steven McCarthy
Nov 29, 2019
The sixth commandment is “You shall not murder.” (Exo 20:13), [1] or, in the memorable KJV, “Thou shalt not kill.” The later vividly captures the word picture of the original, meaning, “to slay, or strike down”. The former is, however, more precise given occasions when taking life is authorized...

Sanctification: Justification & Sanctification, What's the Difference?

Steven McCarthy
Sep 30, 2019
There are several places in the writing of the Apostle Paul where he warns that “the unrighteous shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.” He goes on to furnish examples that, though not exhaustive, are comprehensive enough to catch any of our besetting sins, from sexual immorality and idolatry to...

Deconstructing Destruction in the Church: Repairing the Breach

Steven McCarthy
Apr 19, 2019
A rift has formed in your relationship. Perhaps the chasm has been widening for years. Perhaps the plates shifted, as far as you could tell, like a sudden earth quake. How in that instance do you fulfill the requirement to, “if possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all”? (Rom...

Incomprehensible but Knowable: A Lisping God

Steven McCarthy
Feb 4, 2019
The writings of French reformer, theologian, and pastor John Calvin are often remembered by the Latin phrase “brevitas et claritas”. Calvin wrote to be understood, and avoided using more words than would be helpful. To get to the point then, in English, the phrase means “brevity and clarity”...

The Spirit's Role: Regeneration

Steven McCarthy
Apr 6, 2018
Have you ever wanted a fresh start? Perhaps you fumbled in some area – a marriage, a parent-child relationship, a job – and you longed to reset. Or something happened to you that made you wish for a complete change of identity. The witness protection program no longer sounded inconvenient, but full...

Being a Pentecost Christian: The Gifts and the Gift

Steven McCarthy
Mar 19, 2018
People love lists, from the Billboard Top 20, to 9-things-you-should-know-about-this, to 16-reasons-you-should-never-do-that. Perhaps this is why churches sometimes seem to obsess over lists of “spiritual gifts” (abilities the Spirit works in people), [1] even to the apparent neglect at the Giver,...

Braving Hard Passages: I John 5:6

Steven McCarthy
Feb 28, 2018
We have all had moments in conversation when we did not understand someone, and anyone who reads the Bible comes across texts they do not initially comprehend. Sometimes a person or passage uses words that are simple enough, but we wonder, “what do you mean”? The best thing to do, it would seem, is...

Westminster & Ordination: The Directory of Worship

Steven McCarthy
Oct 27, 2017
Contemporary efforts to enrich public worship inevitably emphasize increased “congregational participation”. This may mean employing special music, or returning to set prayers in which congregation has a unison voice, but the desire is to move beyond a feeling of clerical monologue. Others blame...

Calvin's Life: Lessons from Geneva

Steven McCarthy
Aug 30, 2017
John Calvin arrived in Geneva in June 1536. [1] He intended to stay one night. Fleeing from persecution in his homeland of France, he planned to take up a scholar’s life in Strasbourg, but war forced him to take an unusual route that included the French-speaking city of Geneva. Calvin had no...

Luther's Theology: The Sacraments

Steven McCarthy
Jun 27, 2017
Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are signs of union (Rom 6:3-5) and communion (1Cor. 10:16) with Christ. As a result, they signify union (1Cor. 12:13) and communion among believers as members of Christ’s spiritual body (1Cor. 10:17). Yet these symbols of unity have often become points of deep division...

Luther's Life: Melanchthon, a Dear Friend

Steven McCarthy
Jun 12, 2017
The name “Martin Luther” tends to conjure up solitary images. Whether he was pinning his 95 theses to the church door in Wittenberg, making speeches before an Imperial court at Worms, or hiding out in Wartburg Castle translating the Bible, we often picture Luther alone. But then there are the...

Bible Conferences: Helps in Holiness

Steven McCarthy
Apr 12, 2017
I had been a professing believer for several years when I entered college, but I needed to learn holiness. As Christians, we always need to keep learning holiness, but it was a crying need for me at that point in my development. I needed to learn not just about it, of course, but how to live it –...

Meditating on the Word: Reading the Bible Devotionally

Steven McCarthy
Apr 1, 2017
If you’ve been attending church, you have probably been encouraged to read your Bible devotionally, that is, privately, on a regular, daily basis. In your experience of the Bible, you’ve encountered statements like, “Oh how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day ,” and, “Blessed is the...

Confession and Pastoral Theology: Confession as Pastoral Promise

Steven McCarthy
Jun 1, 2016
So the pastor of the church you attend says the church is “confessional”. He explains that this means the church requires its ministers, and perhaps even members, to subscribe to a common doctrinal standard underneath the authority of Scripture. You might wonder, what does that matter? As long as...

Confession and Orthodoxy: Confessional Identity

Steven McCarthy
Apr 25, 2016
Ministering in a small, rural town with over ten churches, all with relatively low attendance, I have often heard the question, “What makes your church different?” I have found this question difficult to answer, not because I couldn’t rattle off positions and practices that other churches in town...

Old Princeton: Benjamin B. Warfield and Seminary Education Today

Steven McCarthy
Mar 18, 2016
During my first year of seminary, I took a required course titled “Spiritual Development”. Some question the inclusion of such a course in a program of formal theological study. After all, an academic course can not make someone spiritual by itself. What’s more, seminary is best suited to impart...

The End in the Present

Steven McCarthy
Dec 4, 2015
This week on Place for Truth the topic is Eschatology, or the study of Last Things (i.e., final, or ultimate, not least important things). For some, the mention of Eschatology conjures up memories of end times dramatizations, or elaborate charts for the sequence of future events, or heated debates...

The End in the Present

Steven McCarthy
Dec 4, 2015
This week on Place for Truth the topic is Eschatology, or the study of Last Things (i.e., final, or ultimate, not least important things). For some, the mention of Eschatology conjures up memories of end times dramatizations, or elaborate charts for the sequence of future events, or heated debates...

Getting Organized

Steven McCarthy
Sep 16, 2015
If you want to do something well, from running a company, to training for a marathon, to passing classes, keeping a house, raising kids, or cooking meals, it helps to have a system. Yet some of us have been told this our whole lives, and still resist doing things, “systematically”. We prefer to “go...

Conflicts Over Truth and Morality

Steven McCarthy
Jul 15, 2015
If a worldview can be likened to a set of corrective lenses through which one sees life and the world around them, it’s not hard to imagine why a proper worldview is important. If your perception of the world is inaccurate, you struggle to find your way, get dizzy, and bump into things. Holding a “...