Latest Articles on Guard the Deposit
Once for All
I was driving home from a wedding in Tennessee yesterday morning, and so I listened to a sermon on the radio in hopes of having some kind of substitute (however insufficient) for missing church. I found a couple that I had no interest in listening to beyond the first...
Garbage Island
The other night, I introduced my wife to one of my favorite movies, Ladykillers. (Allison did not like it, by the way.) I have seen it many times before, but I have never heard/understood/appreciated this line from the sermon at Marva's church, which you might...
Different Regiments of the Same Army
I have been thoroughly enjoying Perry Miller's The Life of the Mind in America, which presents a highly complex picture of early American Christianity. One of the interesting issues he describes is the unique way in which Christians in America achieved a form of...
Alcohol and Isaiah
My Bible reading plan takes me through the book of Isaiah at the beginning of every summer, and one of the things that I have newly appreciated this time around is Isaiah's versatile use of wine imagery. Isaiah uses wine in at least three major ways, as far as I can...
Numbers, Nearness, and Holiness
Biblically speaking, humanity's nearness to God is more complicated than we often imagine. For example, the hymn "Nearer My God to Thee" would suggest that closeness to God is always a good thing, but this simply is not the case. Rather, the Bible treats nearness to...
D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones and Revival
I have been reading the second volume of Iain Murray's comprehensive biography on D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, having read the first volume last year. It is a bit tedious at times, but only because Murray made the conscious choice to include more, rather than less, "in part...
Blessed Ascension Sunday!
Today is Ascension Sunday, and I was pleased that my church celebrated Christ's Ascension and included a part of the Heidelberg Catechism on the subject: Question 49. Of what advantage to us is Christ's ascension into heaven? Answer: First, that he is our advocate in...
Reagan vs. Kuyper vs. Obama
As some of you know, I went through a long phase where I was a huge fan of Ronald Reagan. I still am, to a large degree, but I no longer actively collect biographies written about him or things like that. In fact, the more I think about Reagan's political philosophy,...
Ransomed from every language, Part 2
Last May, I wrote that suggested that in heaven all the redeemed might speak our individual languages, rather than learning some universal, heavenly language. I was thinking more about this thought this morning, and, being in the...
Augustine on Coercing People into the Kingdom
Does anyone doubt that it is preferable for people to be drawn to worship God by teaching rather than forced by fear of punishment or by pain? But because the one type of people are better, it does not mean that the others, who are not of that type, ought to be...
Augustine on Sparing the Wicked
Augustine took the view that the Church should advocate in the secular realm on behalf of the wicked, that governments might not punish the wicked for what they deserve. This inspired a letter from someone claiming that to do so would, in effect, give approval to the...
I believe in God the Creator…
For a class, I am reading Karl Barth's Dogmatics in Outline, which comprises lectures he gave on the Apostle's Creed. Today, we discussed Barth's chapter on "God the Creator," and my professor drew our attention to this paragraph: We are not nearer to believing in God...