Culture Watch: 24 Things About to Disappear
Rod Dreher (aka "Crunchy Con") at Beliefnet, does a little sociological prognostication here. HT: JT. Also, John Seel pointed me to the following short clip. Kinda scary and exhilirating.
Check this out.
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Showing posts with label Understanding the Times. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Understanding the Times. Show all posts
Monday, February 09, 2009
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Understanding the Times
Vicar! I've been converted!
“Vicar,” I remembering saying back in 1971, “I’ve been converted!”
“No you haven’t!” was the instant response followed by a discussion the next day in which this Anglo-Catholic vicar told me in no uncertain terms, “Too much religion is very bad thing!”
That was 1971 and I had, despite what my vicar said, been “converted.” He, the vicar, didn’t believe in conversion as such; at least, not the evangelical variety involving what has customarily been termed a “born-again” experience in which a discernible change takes place from a life of sin to a life of Christ-exalting godliness. But, thirty-five years later, I still insist I was right and he was wrong. I had been “born-again.”
The problem (one of many) is that different folk employ words to mean different things – a bit like Humpty Dumpty in Alice in Wonderland who, at one point, says to Alice, “I decide what words mean.” Take “born-again”, for example. It’s a perfectly good term, taken from John’s writings (Gospel and epistles), and especially the account of Jesus conversation with Nicodemus. We “must’ be born-again, Jesus insisted, else we will not enter the kingdom of God (John 3:3, 7).
But it has become fashionable in the media of today to employ this term for something less than what Jesus intended by the term. Thus, anyone who wants evangelical kudos will employ “born-again” in his or her resume to ensure the vote of the Bible-belt. But, we run ahead of ourselves. What does the Bible have to say about “conversion”?
The idea of conversion, a turning, or returning, to God lies behind a group of words in both Old and New Testaments, but chiefly by the word evpistre,fw [epistrepho] and refers largely to that decisive turning to God whereby, through faith in Jesus Christ and on the basis of what Christ has achieved for us in his life, death and resurrection, a sinner secures present entry into the kingdom of God and receives forgiveness of sins now as a foretaste of that which will be a reality in the world to come (Matt. 18:3; Acts 3:19). It is an unrepeatable event. You cannot be converted more than once!
It is fascinating, for example, that Paul employs this term when speaking to the pagan and supposititious folk in Lystra. Having arrived in the region where the Roman author Ovid had set his famour work, Metamorphosis – a story in which two of the Greek gods, Hermes and Zeus (Mercury and Jupiter), had assumed mortal flesh – the pagan population of Lystra, on hearing Paul and Barnabas speak and witnessing a miraculous cure of a cripple, began to exclaim: “The gods have come down to us in the likeness of men” (Acts 14:11). Paul responded by saying to them, “we bring you good news, that you should turn from (the verb is evpistre,fw) these vain things to a living God” (Acts 14:15). Since Paul doesn’t cite any Scripture (he’s not speaking to Jews in a synagogue as he was in Pisdian Antioch, for example, but to pagans who didn’t know the Scriptures at all), it is nevertheless interesting that he insists that they are in the wrong and that they need to turn. In other words, he is underlining a concept of sin and te need for repentance (a turning away from sin and towards God).Conversion then involves repentance and faith. Thus Peter links the two ideas in his Pentecost sermon: “Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out” (Acts 3:19). Paul summarizes his early ministry before Agrippa in similar terms, saying that he had declared “to those in Damascus, then in Jerusalem and throughout all the region of Judea, and also to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, performing deeds in keeping with their repentance” (Acts 26:20).
Again, in 1971, I was converted and its effects are with me to this day. Can you say the same?
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Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Understanding the Times
There's Something About Mary
Ligon’s sermons the past two weeks and my own teaching at seminary this week (a course on Christology) has got me thinking about Mary. No, not the doctrine of her Immaculate Conception or her perpetual virginity or her role as Mediatrix: none of which are true according to the Bible. Rather, it is the honor that is due her as the mother of our blessed Lord Jesus. “Blessed are you among women” (Lk 1:42). We honor her as the mother of our Savior.
Because he took half of his chromosomes from the genetic material of Mary (the other half created by the Holy Spirit – “that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit” [Matt 1:20]), it is not beyond possibility that Jesus might even have looked like Mary. Perhaps, at the time of his birth, Elizabeth said to Mary, “He looks just like you!” If she had said that he looked like Joseph it would have been mere politeness on her part because there would have been no genetic explanation for it!
Mary did not volunteer for this role. She was never asked for her compliance. There is covenant between God and Mary in which she promises to undertake the task. It is simply announced to her that she is pregnant. She was entirely passive. Although she contributes half of the genetic material, her role is passive. According to a variant reading of John 1:13 which some have supported, Jesus “was born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” The pregnancy that she experienced was an act of divine sovereignty. It is resplendent of her piety that her compliance in it is without question.
But another honor is due her – for her parenting. Jesus was not only true God; he was also a true man. He possessed all the properties of our human nature (apart from sin). In contrast to the heresy of Apollinarianism (which basically denied that Jesus had a human mind) orthodoxy has insisted that we should give full credence to Luke’s observation that as a child he “grew and became strong, filled with wisdom” (Lk 2:40; cf. 1:80). That means that he learned the Scriptures initially at least from his mother. B. B. Warfield suggested that the source Luke consulted in writing his Gospel account of the Nativity and the early life of Jesus was none other than Mary herself. How often, for example, did she relate to her son the words of Gabriel as to the identity of her unborn son.
One imagines that she taught him Bible stories of the lives and exploits of Abraham and Joseph and King David. She would have related the familiar lines of the Shepherd Psalm (Ps 23) and the role of the Suffering Servant in Isaiah. She might have recited to him promises of reassurance from favorite passages as she rocked him to sleep as a little boy. Since it is more than likely that Joseph died in Jesus’ early teenage years, it was Mary who contributed most to our Lord’s character formation during his transition from puberty to manhood. There is no doubt that the bond between them was unusually close and the tenderness with which he cares for her from the cross is among the most sublime in Scripture. One cannot imagine the pain that she experienced as the darkness of Calvary descended upon her beloved son.
Mary was not sinless. Her own redemption was by faith alone in the finished work of her son alone. But she was unique among women in the role that she performed. Of none other could it be said, “She is the mother of my Lord.” And we honor her appropriately.
Because he took half of his chromosomes from the genetic material of Mary (the other half created by the Holy Spirit – “that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit” [Matt 1:20]), it is not beyond possibility that Jesus might even have looked like Mary. Perhaps, at the time of his birth, Elizabeth said to Mary, “He looks just like you!” If she had said that he looked like Joseph it would have been mere politeness on her part because there would have been no genetic explanation for it!
Mary did not volunteer for this role. She was never asked for her compliance. There is covenant between God and Mary in which she promises to undertake the task. It is simply announced to her that she is pregnant. She was entirely passive. Although she contributes half of the genetic material, her role is passive. According to a variant reading of John 1:13 which some have supported, Jesus “was born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” The pregnancy that she experienced was an act of divine sovereignty. It is resplendent of her piety that her compliance in it is without question.
But another honor is due her – for her parenting. Jesus was not only true God; he was also a true man. He possessed all the properties of our human nature (apart from sin). In contrast to the heresy of Apollinarianism (which basically denied that Jesus had a human mind) orthodoxy has insisted that we should give full credence to Luke’s observation that as a child he “grew and became strong, filled with wisdom” (Lk 2:40; cf. 1:80). That means that he learned the Scriptures initially at least from his mother. B. B. Warfield suggested that the source Luke consulted in writing his Gospel account of the Nativity and the early life of Jesus was none other than Mary herself. How often, for example, did she relate to her son the words of Gabriel as to the identity of her unborn son.
One imagines that she taught him Bible stories of the lives and exploits of Abraham and Joseph and King David. She would have related the familiar lines of the Shepherd Psalm (Ps 23) and the role of the Suffering Servant in Isaiah. She might have recited to him promises of reassurance from favorite passages as she rocked him to sleep as a little boy. Since it is more than likely that Joseph died in Jesus’ early teenage years, it was Mary who contributed most to our Lord’s character formation during his transition from puberty to manhood. There is no doubt that the bond between them was unusually close and the tenderness with which he cares for her from the cross is among the most sublime in Scripture. One cannot imagine the pain that she experienced as the darkness of Calvary descended upon her beloved son.
Mary was not sinless. Her own redemption was by faith alone in the finished work of her son alone. But she was unique among women in the role that she performed. Of none other could it be said, “She is the mother of my Lord.” And we honor her appropriately.
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Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Understanding the Times
"Time, like an ever-rolling stream..."
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The words are from Isaac Watts’ rendition of Psalm 90, one which we considered on Sunday evening when I spoke about how Christians should approach the New Year. What I failed to point out – something which I was musing on as I drove to church on Sunday evening and then forgot to mention it – was that Psalm 90 provides a God-centered, Gospel-focused, Christ-infused, and Heaven-bent way of looking at how to live wisely. It was, I think, my best thought and then in the delivery forgot to mention it! So let me explain what I intended to say:
First, the psalmist’s (Moses’) way of saying, “Teach me to be wise” (which he does in verse 12 when he asks for a “heart of wisdom”) is to turn all his thoughts upon God. This is the answer to the me-centered sickness that pervades our existence: watch how the psalmist insists that wisdom (practical, day-to-day advice about how living for God) is a by-product of contemplating God’s character. Yes, watch him ring the changes on God’s eternality, sovereignty, severity and mercy. The first question we need to ask in Bible study is not, “What is this text saying to me?” but “What is this text saying to me about God?” God-centered living puts God first, second and last. Those in love will understand full well: we just can’t get enough of those we love and if we truly love God we will be equally dissatisfied with anything (or anyone) else.
Second, Moses’ understood gospel-dynamics. Yes he did! Law-laden Moses, that is! Watch him ask for mercy for his increasing consciousness of sin by mentioning God’s “loving-kindness” (Miles Coverdale’s famous translation) or “steadfast love” as the ESV renders it in verse 14. This must be the most important word in the Old Testament for sure! Its frequent appearances always speak of God’s unmerited favor shown to sinners through blood-bought redemption and forgiveness. It is God’s covenantal, "promise made – promise kept" word denoting how sins are covered and sinners reconciled. It speaks of gospel (for there is no obligation on God’s part to make such a covenant) and ultimately of Jesus Christ, God’s only-begotten Son. He – Jesus – is the seed of the woman that will bruise the head of the seed of the serpent as Moses had written in his opening pages of Scripture (Gen. 3:15). Gospel-focused and Christ-infused – this is the way of wisdom: recalling that each moment we exist in this love-relationship with God is only because of God’s “unspeakable gift” to us – the death of his Son for us. Wisdom comes from knowing we are recipients of mercy!
Third, the psalm encourages a heaven-bent mentality, what the Puritans called living sub specie aeternitatis – in the light of eternity. Our time here is short and living for the things that this world offers is not only misguided but foolish. This world is passing away and we along with it (remember Moses’ warnings about the average life-span being seventy years in verse 10). Dust we are and to dust we shall return. Moth and rust corrupts everything and only what is done for Jesus will last. Wise Christians know this and put it into practice: giving away what they do not need to further God’s kingdom. The brevity of life is a sobering reality, one should force us to look up and say: “Here am I, Lord! What will you have me to do for you today?”
First, the psalmist’s (Moses’) way of saying, “Teach me to be wise” (which he does in verse 12 when he asks for a “heart of wisdom”) is to turn all his thoughts upon God. This is the answer to the me-centered sickness that pervades our existence: watch how the psalmist insists that wisdom (practical, day-to-day advice about how living for God) is a by-product of contemplating God’s character. Yes, watch him ring the changes on God’s eternality, sovereignty, severity and mercy. The first question we need to ask in Bible study is not, “What is this text saying to me?” but “What is this text saying to me about God?” God-centered living puts God first, second and last. Those in love will understand full well: we just can’t get enough of those we love and if we truly love God we will be equally dissatisfied with anything (or anyone) else.
Second, Moses’ understood gospel-dynamics. Yes he did! Law-laden Moses, that is! Watch him ask for mercy for his increasing consciousness of sin by mentioning God’s “loving-kindness” (Miles Coverdale’s famous translation) or “steadfast love” as the ESV renders it in verse 14. This must be the most important word in the Old Testament for sure! Its frequent appearances always speak of God’s unmerited favor shown to sinners through blood-bought redemption and forgiveness. It is God’s covenantal, "promise made – promise kept" word denoting how sins are covered and sinners reconciled. It speaks of gospel (for there is no obligation on God’s part to make such a covenant) and ultimately of Jesus Christ, God’s only-begotten Son. He – Jesus – is the seed of the woman that will bruise the head of the seed of the serpent as Moses had written in his opening pages of Scripture (Gen. 3:15). Gospel-focused and Christ-infused – this is the way of wisdom: recalling that each moment we exist in this love-relationship with God is only because of God’s “unspeakable gift” to us – the death of his Son for us. Wisdom comes from knowing we are recipients of mercy!
Third, the psalm encourages a heaven-bent mentality, what the Puritans called living sub specie aeternitatis – in the light of eternity. Our time here is short and living for the things that this world offers is not only misguided but foolish. This world is passing away and we along with it (remember Moses’ warnings about the average life-span being seventy years in verse 10). Dust we are and to dust we shall return. Moth and rust corrupts everything and only what is done for Jesus will last. Wise Christians know this and put it into practice: giving away what they do not need to further God’s kingdom. The brevity of life is a sobering reality, one should force us to look up and say: “Here am I, Lord! What will you have me to do for you today?”
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Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Understanding the Times
Bethlehem
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As it happens, the reading for today (Dec 16) in my “ESV Bible Designed to be Read in a Year” is Micah 5-7. Written in the time of Isaiah, seven centuries before the event, it contains the Christmas prophecy of Jesus birth in Bethlehem: “But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel” (Mic. 5:2).
It’s that time of year again: Christmas, the shepherds, the baby Jesus in the stall, angelic visitors with “good news,” and of course holly, ivy, eggnog and Santa.
No, I am not about to start a diatribe against the sentimentalizing of Christmas. I’m actually all for it – it’s religion that ruins Christmas. I’m all for mince pies and Yule logs so long as we don’t attach any religious significance to any of it! We try, of course (unsuccessfully), to insist that “Jesus is the real meaning of Christmas,” but the truth is that much of the paraphernalia we now associate with December 25 has nothing to do with Jesus; nor should it.
But I said I wasn’t going to begin my anti-Christmas diatribe; and I won’t. Instead, I want us to think about Bethlehem and the birth of the baby Jesus. It is, after all, one of the greatest mysterious we ever encounter: “God contracted to a span” as Wesley put it in one of his hymns (a “span” is the distance from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger, i.e. the size of an infant).
The attempt to formulate in human language what happened at Bethlehem brought about one of greatest church councils ever witnessed – the Council of Chalcedon (A.D. 451). The Chalcedonian Creed is profound and precise, stretching language to breaking point as it attempts to find a way through competing errors about what the incarnation of Jesus Christ actually means. Having already affirmed the full deity of Jesus a century and a quarter earlier (at Nicea A.D. 325), countering the Arian heresy that Jesus was God’s first and noblest, Chalcedon affirmed it (Jesus is consubstantial [co-essential] with the Father) now attempted to define how Jesus was both true man and true God without diminishing or confusing either nature:
• Denying that Jesus had a split personality (the Nestorian idea) Chalcedon, Chalcedon affirmed Jesus to be one divine-human person
• Denying that Jesus deity had swallowed his humanity (the Eutychian idea), Chalcedon affirmed Jesus to have two natures having two capacities for action, reaction and experience
• Denying that one nature’s experience out-did the other nature (as in Apollinarius idea that Jesus human mind was submerged beneath his divine mind), Chalcedon insisted that each nature retained its own distinctive attributes without mixture, confusion, separation or division.
The language takes your breath away and every word of it has our salvation (the possibility of it) at its heart. J. I. Packer correctly says that the greatest mystery of the Christian faith is not the resurrection of Christ or his miracles, but his blessed incarnation—“the plurality of persons in the unity of God, and the union of Godhead and manhood in the person of Jesus” (J. I. Packer, Knowing God [Downers Grove, IL: 1993, InterVarsity Press], 53). Packer further states, “But once the Incarnation is grasped as a reality . . . other difficulties will dissolve” (Knowing God, p. 54).
He is correct, of course. And we have a couple of weeks to think about it, pray about it, and worship!
It’s that time of year again: Christmas, the shepherds, the baby Jesus in the stall, angelic visitors with “good news,” and of course holly, ivy, eggnog and Santa.
No, I am not about to start a diatribe against the sentimentalizing of Christmas. I’m actually all for it – it’s religion that ruins Christmas. I’m all for mince pies and Yule logs so long as we don’t attach any religious significance to any of it! We try, of course (unsuccessfully), to insist that “Jesus is the real meaning of Christmas,” but the truth is that much of the paraphernalia we now associate with December 25 has nothing to do with Jesus; nor should it.
But I said I wasn’t going to begin my anti-Christmas diatribe; and I won’t. Instead, I want us to think about Bethlehem and the birth of the baby Jesus. It is, after all, one of the greatest mysterious we ever encounter: “God contracted to a span” as Wesley put it in one of his hymns (a “span” is the distance from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger, i.e. the size of an infant).
The attempt to formulate in human language what happened at Bethlehem brought about one of greatest church councils ever witnessed – the Council of Chalcedon (A.D. 451). The Chalcedonian Creed is profound and precise, stretching language to breaking point as it attempts to find a way through competing errors about what the incarnation of Jesus Christ actually means. Having already affirmed the full deity of Jesus a century and a quarter earlier (at Nicea A.D. 325), countering the Arian heresy that Jesus was God’s first and noblest, Chalcedon affirmed it (Jesus is consubstantial [co-essential] with the Father) now attempted to define how Jesus was both true man and true God without diminishing or confusing either nature:
• Denying that Jesus had a split personality (the Nestorian idea) Chalcedon, Chalcedon affirmed Jesus to be one divine-human person
• Denying that Jesus deity had swallowed his humanity (the Eutychian idea), Chalcedon affirmed Jesus to have two natures having two capacities for action, reaction and experience
• Denying that one nature’s experience out-did the other nature (as in Apollinarius idea that Jesus human mind was submerged beneath his divine mind), Chalcedon insisted that each nature retained its own distinctive attributes without mixture, confusion, separation or division.
The language takes your breath away and every word of it has our salvation (the possibility of it) at its heart. J. I. Packer correctly says that the greatest mystery of the Christian faith is not the resurrection of Christ or his miracles, but his blessed incarnation—“the plurality of persons in the unity of God, and the union of Godhead and manhood in the person of Jesus” (J. I. Packer, Knowing God [Downers Grove, IL: 1993, InterVarsity Press], 53). Packer further states, “But once the Incarnation is grasped as a reality . . . other difficulties will dissolve” (Knowing God, p. 54).
He is correct, of course. And we have a couple of weeks to think about it, pray about it, and worship!
Read more...
Tuesday, December 02, 2008
Understanding the Times
Expository Preaching -- what's all the fuss about?
I’m still thinking about the text from last Sunday evening. How the Levites moved among the crowds gathered in the square before the Water Gate in Jerusalem as Ezra read from the Law of Moses (the first five books of the Old Testament). What were they doing? This is what Nehemiah 8:8 says: “they gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading.”
The Hebrew term translated “gave the sense” here in the ESV can be rendered differently, but the ESV has chosen the view (on good grounds) that what the Levites were doing was a) translating the Hebrew Scriptures into Aramaic – the language that the Jews had now been using for the best part of a century or more, and b) expounding the meaning of the text, moving from the culture of the text to the culture in which they now found themselves. They were engaged in preaching! And preaching is just that – explain what the text of Scriptures means and applying to our own situation.
Preaching, true preaching, takes place when God’s servants act as God’s spokesmen or sounding boards, letting the Bible do the talking. Of course, one gets the sense that these Levites needed to contextualize what they read accounting for the twin horizons of the original setting of the text and the post-Exilic context in which they now found themselves. As J. I. Packer writes, “all true preaching is biblical interpretation – that is, elucidation and application of ‘God’s Word written’,” adding, “Preaching means speaking God’s own message in his name, that is, as his representative; and this is possible for us, with our sin-twisted minds, only as we labour faithfully to re-echo, re-state, and re-apply God’s once-for-all witness to himself in Holy Scripture. Biblical interpretation means theological exegesis of the text, in relation to the rest of the organism of revealed truth, for the scripturally defined purposes of teaching, reproof, correction and training in righteousness (cf. 2 Tim. 3:16-17).” (J. I. Packer, “The Preacher as Theologian,” in When God’s Voice is Heard: Essays on preaching presented to Dick Lucas, Eds. Christopher Green and David Jackman (Leicester, England: IVP, 1995), 85-86.).
On that day in September, 445 B.C. a work of reformation had begun in which a new respect and new love developed in the hearts of the people of God for the Scriptures. What would a new reformation look like? As with the sixteenth century Reformation, a new one would consist in a return to faith expository preaching of the kind described in Nehemiah 8. In Geneva, for example, in the middle-decades of the sixteenth century, John Calvin labored week by week to expound the Scriptures carefully working his way through entire books of the Bible, taking a few verses at a time. We have access to 46 sermons on Thessalonians, 186 on Corinthians, 86 on the Pastoral Epistles, 159 on Job, 353 on Isaiah, 123 on Genesis. On Easter Day, 1538, after preaching, he left the pulpit of St. Peter’s banished by the City authorities. He returned in September 1541, over three years later, and picked up his exposition in the very next verse. Calvin was demonstrating his unwavering commitment to expository preaching! We must be grateful for what remains of expository preaching and encourage it where it does exist. But we long to see a day when every pulpit is committed to a form of preaching that honors the integrity of the written Word of God.
May we see that day come in our lifetime!
I’m still thinking about the text from last Sunday evening. How the Levites moved among the crowds gathered in the square before the Water Gate in Jerusalem as Ezra read from the Law of Moses (the first five books of the Old Testament). What were they doing? This is what Nehemiah 8:8 says: “they gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading.”
The Hebrew term translated “gave the sense” here in the ESV can be rendered differently, but the ESV has chosen the view (on good grounds) that what the Levites were doing was a) translating the Hebrew Scriptures into Aramaic – the language that the Jews had now been using for the best part of a century or more, and b) expounding the meaning of the text, moving from the culture of the text to the culture in which they now found themselves. They were engaged in preaching! And preaching is just that – explain what the text of Scriptures means and applying to our own situation.
Preaching, true preaching, takes place when God’s servants act as God’s spokesmen or sounding boards, letting the Bible do the talking. Of course, one gets the sense that these Levites needed to contextualize what they read accounting for the twin horizons of the original setting of the text and the post-Exilic context in which they now found themselves. As J. I. Packer writes, “all true preaching is biblical interpretation – that is, elucidation and application of ‘God’s Word written’,” adding, “Preaching means speaking God’s own message in his name, that is, as his representative; and this is possible for us, with our sin-twisted minds, only as we labour faithfully to re-echo, re-state, and re-apply God’s once-for-all witness to himself in Holy Scripture. Biblical interpretation means theological exegesis of the text, in relation to the rest of the organism of revealed truth, for the scripturally defined purposes of teaching, reproof, correction and training in righteousness (cf. 2 Tim. 3:16-17).” (J. I. Packer, “The Preacher as Theologian,” in When God’s Voice is Heard: Essays on preaching presented to Dick Lucas, Eds. Christopher Green and David Jackman (Leicester, England: IVP, 1995), 85-86.).
On that day in September, 445 B.C. a work of reformation had begun in which a new respect and new love developed in the hearts of the people of God for the Scriptures. What would a new reformation look like? As with the sixteenth century Reformation, a new one would consist in a return to faith expository preaching of the kind described in Nehemiah 8. In Geneva, for example, in the middle-decades of the sixteenth century, John Calvin labored week by week to expound the Scriptures carefully working his way through entire books of the Bible, taking a few verses at a time. We have access to 46 sermons on Thessalonians, 186 on Corinthians, 86 on the Pastoral Epistles, 159 on Job, 353 on Isaiah, 123 on Genesis. On Easter Day, 1538, after preaching, he left the pulpit of St. Peter’s banished by the City authorities. He returned in September 1541, over three years later, and picked up his exposition in the very next verse. Calvin was demonstrating his unwavering commitment to expository preaching! We must be grateful for what remains of expository preaching and encourage it where it does exist. But we long to see a day when every pulpit is committed to a form of preaching that honors the integrity of the written Word of God.
May we see that day come in our lifetime!
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