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  One thing have I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to inquire in his temple (Psalm 27:4).

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Doctrine is to the spiritual world what wisdom is to the visible world.
God hardwired the world we live in to work in particular ways.  This means that there are certain observable realities that can be ignored at your own risk. If you don’t work hard to tend your garden, God’s design [...]

Doctrine is important the way roads are important.
I’ve recently driven across several states–all through the night, in fact. Why? Not because I love driving (which I don’t). Not because the roads through Pennsylvania are models of engineering (which they’re not).
No, I spent seven hours on dark roads in order to spend time with extended family. [...]

Here is an excerpt from John Owen’s “The Glory of Christ” (Works of John Owen, volume 1; pages 291 & 292). Beholding the glory of Christ is the only way to be free from the bait and captivity of sin. (Owen is not easy to read, but is well worth the effort.)
Herein, then, our present [...]

This past two weekends in Sunday School, we have studied the Passion Week—the final week of our Savior’s earthly ministry. We noted how roundly Jesus condemned Israel and its leaders for being Israel for the sake of Israel. They longed for God to set them free from pagan oppression and bring in the kingdom He [...]

The ESV Bible Blog has helpfully integrated the events of the Passion Week with Google Map. Now you can see not only when various events occurred, you can also see where they occurred.
There are 89 total chapters in the four canonical Gospels (Matthew, 28; Mark, 16; Luke, 24; John, 21). Do you know how many [...]

Yesterday our Sunday School class covered the entire Sermon on the Mount. We spent the first 25 minutes going over the background and flow of thought or structure of this most famous of Jesus’ sermons. Then, since Matthew 5-7 is a sermon, we spent the final 25 minutes watching/listening to it as a sermon on [...]

Following yesterday’s post, I also have appreciated the imagery of Psalm 131:2, which Pastor Jon read last Sunday.
But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
Like a weaned child with its mother;
Like a weaned child is my soul within me (ESV).
On this verse Charles Spurgeon quotes the following comments from Thomas Manton:
 Though the weaned child has [...]

There are a couple passages from the Psalms whose imagery deeply ministers to my soul. One I love is found in Psalm 130:6.
My soul waits for the Lord
More than watchmen for the morning,
More than watchmen for the morning.
A night guard walking his post on the top of a city might greatly long for morning to [...]

On Sunday, we took a third look at idolatry as we continued our trek through the Lenten season and focused on our need for self-examination and repentance.  Gary Beale’s work, We Become What We Worship, is a guiding text in the study.  Beale’s thesis is that we come to resemble what we revere, either for [...]

In his article, “The Biblical Gospel,” D. A. Carson integrates the Gospel into the over-arching trajectory of the Bible’s plot line. (Note how he also identifies God’s love as being at the center of His glorious Being.) This summary clarified my thinking and stirred my heart.
Thus the gospel is integrally tied to the Bible’s story-line. [...]

If I’m going to quote “The Princess Bride” earlier in the week, why not go ahead and site this memorable line (among many) from “Napoleon Dynamite“?
Here are several other links that I thought were spot on, reinforcing what I’ve been trying to articulate this week.
Tony Reinke has a great post on what “glory” really means.
And [...]

How can the essence of God’s unique person (i.e., His holiness, His godness) be benevolent goodness or love? If this were the case, how did He live out this love before creation? Wouldn’t that have required someone to love?
Exactly.
Jesus prays in John 17:24: “Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may [...]

The thesis of Greg Beale’s work, We Become What We Worship: A Biblical Theology of Idolatry, is “we resemble what we revere, either for ruin or restoration.”  Following Beale’s text, yesterday at church we took a hard look at how Jesus builds on the theme of idolatry in the Gospels through his use of Isaiah [...]

I’m reminded of this line from “The Princess Bride” when I think about the biblical word “holiness.”
Holiness “connotes the essential nature that belongs to the sphere of God’s being or activity and that is distinct from the common or profane” (NIDOTTE, 3:879). In other words, it has to do with what sets God apart as [...]

For anyone who wasn’t able to listen to Don Carson lecture on the book of Hebrews this week at TEDS, you can listen or download his six-part series on Hebrews for free here.