We recently had the opportunity to talk with Dr. Peter Lillback, President of Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, about his doctoral dissertation, The Binding of God: Calvin’s Role in the Development of Covenant Theology. Dr. Lillback has contributed numerous articles to various publications and journals, and is the author of George Washington’s Sacred Fire and Wall of Misconception. He has set out to offer an objective reading of John Calvin in regard to his view of “covenant” and the role that it plays in theology. The Binding of God is a significant contribution to the understanding of the covenant concept in church history.You can listen to the interview here.

Every Thanksgiving I am reminded of the account of the one leper who, after he was healed, returned to give thanks to Jesus (Luke 17:11-19):

11 Now it happened as He went to Jerusalem that He passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. 12 Then as He entered a certain village, there met Him ten men who were lepers, who stood afar off. 13 And they lifted up their voices and said, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” 14 So when He saw them, He said to them, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And so it was that as they went, they were cleansed. 15 And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, returned, and with a loud voice glorified God, 16 and fell down on his face at His feet, giving Him thanks. And he was a Samaritan. 17 So Jesus answered and said, “Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine? 18 Were there not any found who returned to give glory to God except this foreigner?” 19 And He said to him, “Arise, go your way. Your faith has made you well.”

There are so many striking details in this passage. First, notice the way that all ten lepers acknowledged Jesus as ‘Master.’ They knew that He was more than just a man. This is further demonstrated in the way that they cry out for mercy. In the same manner as Blind Bartimaeus, these men understand something of their need, physically and spiritually. They are acknowledging their helplessness and perhaps even their sinfulness. Their cry was enough to move the Lord to heal them. Immediately He tells them to ‘Go, and show themselves to the priests.’ The Lord would make these men physically and ceremonially clean. Luke notes that “as they went, they were cleansed.” These ten men obeyed Jesus. We are not told that they hesitated, even for one minute. These men obeyed Jesus–at His command, they went. But then things change.

Luke draws our attention to the one man who, when he realized he was healed, returned, and “with a loud voice glorified God, and fell down on his face giving Him thanks.” This is heartfelt thanksgiving. Each year we may give lip service to the idea of thanksgiving. We may recognize some of the things that the Lord has done for us throughout the year–and it is good for us to be reminded of these things. But heartfelt thanksgiving is spontaneous. It recognizes what great things the Lord has done for us, and it causes us to fall on our face before God and give thanks to Christ for healing us. Only those who have been the recipients of God’s mercy in Christ can truly be thankful. There is a danger, however, for those of us who have received so much from the Lord and who are part of the covenant people of God.

Luke proceeds to mention that this thankful leper was a Samaritan. He had no right to the covenant promises. He was despised by the Jewish nation. He was essentially a pagan, outcast leper. And yet, he was the one who showed heartfelt thanksgiving to Jesus. Let us not forget that we, who have been given the greatest covenant privileges, are also the ones who may be in danger of not recognizing the undeserved mercy of God in Christ. Notice Jesus’ response.

Our Lord did not pass up the opportunity to use this man as an example for the Christian church. “Were there not ten cleansed? Where are the nine?,” He asks, “Where there not any found who returned to give glory to God except this foreigner?” Jesus shows His dismay at the lack of thankfulness, especially among the covenant people of God. This is a warning to all of us who have been redeemed by the blood of Christ–who have experienced the lavish mercy of God in Christ. We are always in danger of being like the nine Jewish lepers who did not come back to Christ with heartfelt thanksgiving. May God grant us today, and every day of our lives, the thanksgiving that this one Samaritan leper gave to Jesus for His healing mercy.

Last year I began a series of posts on “Pitfalls in Mercy Ministry.” One of the posts dealt with the work of Thomas Chalmers. Chalmers influence cannot be emphasized enough. One of the specific areas to which he contributed a considerable amount of practical theology was that of deaconal ministry. Here is a previous post dealing with some of Chalmers’ thoughts on mercy ministry. Michael Ives, over at West Port Experiment, has some extremely helpful posts on Chalmers and deaconal ministry. Ives argues that Chalmers is not more widely appreciated today in circles that emphasize mercy ministry due to the evangelical nature of his ministry. Chalmers always put the Gospel at the center of his ministry. The following three posts are the most relevant:

The realization that images and pictures of God affect our thoughts of God points to a further realm in which the prohibition of the second commandment applies. Just as it forbids us to manufacture molten images of God, so it forbids us to dream up mental images of him. Imagining God in our heads can be just as real a breach of the second commandment as imagining him by the work of our hands.

How often do we hear this sort of thing: “I like to think of God as the great Architect (or Mathematician or Artist).” “I don’t think of God as a Judge; I like to think of him simply as a Father.” We know from experience how often remarks of this kind serve as the prelude to a denial of something that the Bible tells us about God. It needs to be said with the greatest possible emphasis that those who hold themselves free to think of God as they like are breaking the second commandment. At best, they can only think of God in the image of man—as an ideal man, perhaps, or a superman. But God is not any sort of man. We were made in his image, but we must not think of him as existing in ours. To think of God in such terms is to be ignorant of him, not to know him.

All speculative theology, which rests on philosophical reasoning rather than biblical revelation, is at fault here. Paul tells us where this sort of theology ends: “The world by wisdom knew not God” (1 Cor 1:21 KJV). To follow the imagination of one’s heart in the realm of theology is the way to remain ignorant of God, and to become an idol-worshipper—the idol in this case being a false mental image of God, made by one’s own speculation and imagination.

In this light, the positive purpose of the second commandment becomes plain. Negatively, it is a warning against ways of worship and religious practice that lead us to dishonor God and to falsify his truth. Positively, it is a summons to us to recognize that God the Creator is transcendent, mysterious and inscrutable, beyond the range of any imagining or philosophical guesswork of which we are capable—and hence a summons to us to humble ourselves, to listen and learn of him, and to let him teach us what he is like and how we should think of him.
. . .

The question which arises for us all from the line of thought which we have been pursuing is this: How far are we keeping the second commandment? Granted, there are no bull-images in the churches we attend, and probably we have not got a crucifix in the house (though we may have some pictures of Christ on our walls that we ought to think twice about); but are we sure that the God whom we seek to worship is the God of the Bible, the triune Jehovah? Do we worship the one true God in truth? Or are our ideas of God such that in reality we do not believe in the Christian God, but in some other, just as the Muslim or Jew or Jehovah’s Witness does not believe in the Christian God, but in some other?

You may say, how can I tell? Well, the test is this. The God of the Bible has spoken in his Son. The light of the knowledge of his glory is given to us in the face of Jesus Christ. Do I look habitually to the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ as showing me the final truth about the nature and the grace of God? Do I see all the purposes of God as centering upon him?

If I have been enabled to see this, and in mind and heart to go to Calvary and lay hold of the Calvary solution, then I can know that I truly worship the true God, and that he is my God, and that I am even now enjoying eternal life, according to our Lord’s own definition, “Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent” (Jn 17:3).

—J. I. Packer, Knowing God (InterVarsity Press, 1993), 47–50.

Thanks to Andy Naselli for the reminder on the “Ask Pastor John” series over at Desiring God. These are posted three times a week and cover a broad range of questions. You can find all of the episodes here.

On February 5-7, 2009, the Institute for Reformed Worship at Erskine Seminary is promoting “The Architectural Setting of Christian Worship” at Independent Presbyterian Church, in Savannah, Ga. Speakers include Hughes Oliphant Old, Terry Johnson, Mark Ross, and David Gobel. You can find out all the details here. Conference Registration is $150.00, Student Registration is $25.00.

How kind the good Samaritan To him who fell among the thieves! Thus Jesus pities fallen man, And heals the wounds the soul receives. O! I remember well the day, When sorely wounded, nearly slain; Like that poor man I bleeding lay, And groaned for help, but groaned in vain. Men saw me in this helpless case, And passed without compassion by; Each neighbor turned away his face, Unmoved by my mournful cry. But he whose name had been my scorn, (As Jews Samaritans despise) Came, when he saw me thus forlorn, With love and pity in his eyes. Gently he raised me from the ground, Pressed me to lean upon his arm; And into every gaping wound He poured his own all–healing balm. Unto his church my steps he led, The house prepared for sinners lost; Gave charge I should be clothed and fed; And took upon him all the cost. Thus saved from death, from want secured, I wait till he again shall come, (When I shall be completely cured) And take me to his heav’nly home. There through eternal boundless days, When nature’s wheel no longer rolls, How shall I love, adore, and praise, This good Samaritan to souls!

Dale Ralph Davis has an article over at Reformation 21, on why evangelicals have largely abandoned the OT. For those of you who do not know Dr. Davis, you can find out more about him here. You can read the article here.

Here is the link to a great sermon by Sinclair Ferguson on Jesus, Children, and the Kingdom of God. It is the eighth sermon on the player that comes up. It is a helpful exposition of a passage that substantiates Covenant Theology. I remember the first time I came to realize that when Jesus put His hands on the little children and blessed them He was not simply showing kindness to children. As the Covenant LORD, He was giving them the covenant blessing. The parents of these children were bringing their children to the Lord Jesus Christ late in His ministry, after most had rejected Him. These children were the children of believing parents, no doubt!

Mike Gilbart-Smith, Pastor to students at Capitol Hill Baptist Church in D.C., has a very useful article over at The Theologian in which he argues that Jesus was the prototypical Systematic Theologian . He writes:

This is an extremely insightful point. Jesus does not just quote Scripture, He explains it in light of the collective content of biblical revelation. Of course, Gilbart-Smith implies that the Saducees also did Systematic Theology. In fact, I would argue that everyone does Systematic Theology. I remember hearing Ligon Duncan say once, “If someone tells you they don’t have a systematic theology, ‘Watch out,’ they’re about to slide it under your door.” We all do systematics. The question is, “Do we do Systematic Theology the way Christ did?”

Here is the link to a very interesting post by Mark Jones, over at the Thomas Goodwin blog, concerning the Westminster Assembly, Christology and the Imputation debate. While it is a well known fact that some of the divines differed over the language of active and passive obedience, why they differed is not as well known. Check out Jones’ thoughts.

You can also listen to a lecture by Chad Vandixhoorn here.

Ligonier Ministries is posting videos from the 2008 Together for the Gospel Conference from Nov. 18-Dec. 5. If you were not able to attend T4G, or would simply like to see and hear the speakers again, tune in. You can find links and details here.

I just received a copy of G.K. Beale’s new book The Erosion of Inerrancy in Evangelicalism from Crossway. It is a direct response to Peter Enns’ Inspiration and Incarnation. I look forward to reading the book and offering a meager response. Just to give you a flavor of where Beale is going, he attributes the current evangelical reassessment of the doctrine of inerrancy to two factors:

It should be an interesting read. You can pick the book up from Westminster this month.

Today at the CCEF Annual Conference, Mike Emlet spoke on addictions from the perspective of the New Testament. Mike spoke about the foundational starting point of the believer’s union with Christ. Christ’s death is our death to sin and his resurrection is our resurrection to newness of life. It is this reality that provides the context for our struggle with sin. Mike’s lecture was extremely encouraging and my Vossian ears perked up when he brought union with Christ up. Though most people don’t realize it, CCEF is very heavy on the importance of union with Christ in counseling.

Our friend Jeff Jue’s doctoral dissertation is now available on Google Books. You can read most of it online here. For those of you who do not know Jeff allow me to give you a brief bio. Jeff is a graduate of Westminister Seminary California. After finishing seminary he went to Aberdeen to do his doctoral studies under Dr. Carl Trueman. Jeff’s dissertaion is titled, Heaven upon Earth, Joseph Mede and the Legacy of Millenarianism. After completing his doctoral studies, Jeff lectured there at the University of Aberdeen. Beginning in 2002 he became a visiting professor at Reformed Theological Seminary and Westminster Theological Seminary, in Philadelphia. Jeff is currently the Associate Professor of Church History at Westminster Theological Seminary.

We had the opportunity to catch up with Dr. Stephen Nichols to talk about his new book, Getting the Blues. You can listen here. Dr. Nichols is research director of Christianity and Culture at Lancaster Bible College. “Nichols discusses his interest in blues music and shows how the blues touch upon biblical themes.”

Even Derek Thomas has given this interview a proper recommendation! You can read it here.

Thomas Hooker, the New England Puritan, once made the astute observation that the problem with the men at Pentecost was not that they had not seen nor heard Christ enough before, but that they had not been sufficiently convicted of their sins. They had seen Christ many times before, but the Holy Spirit had to come and convict them of their sins in a saving way. Iain Murray writes:

The reason for the change in the 3,000 on the day of Pentecost was not that they had not heard of Christ before but that they had not been convicted before: ‘They were pricked in their heart and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren,what shall we do?’ [Acts 2.37]. 1

Hooker wrote:

A true sight and sense of a man’s sinful condition sets men upon the search, awakens men out of that senseless security in which they were buried, makes them look about them, puts them upon the serious consideration of their own spiritual condition, not long before they had scant thought whether they had souls to be saved, or sins to be pardoned, or mercy to be looked after, they never put it to the question what they could say or shew for heaven, but now they begin to think with themselves what they are.2

With the rise of interest in the use of Ancient Near Eastern Literature comes a new responsibility for Christians to be careful of what they adopt into their doctrine of Scripture. It has become a common to suggest that Proverbs 22:17-24:22 was a later composition of Egyptian Proverbs, supposedly given by Amen-em-opet, and commonly called the Instruction of Amenemope. Before rushing to adopt this view of literary dependence, I want to recommend six short blog posts by Dr. Benjamin Shaw:

The first post can be read here, and the rest can be found here.

While it is easy to overreact to those who say they hold to what is commonly known as “the Regulative Principle of Worship,” (largely because of all the contention that many who hold to the RPW have caused in the church in regard to exclusive psalmody), it is much more difficult to carefully and reverently work your way through the Scriptures in order to outline how God tells us He is to be worshiped.

Worship is the greatest act we are called to in this world. If we truly believe that the Bible governs every aspect of our lives (if not directly, certainly indirectly) then we must admit that it speaks to the issue of how God is to be worshiped. The greatest point of contention seems to be whether we are only to worship with Psalms (e.g. most of the Reformers, Puritans, and Scottish Presbyterians) or if we are supposed to write New Covenant compositions with which to worship the Lord. Jonathan Goundry, over at Bring the Books, has a helpful outline of some theological and exegetical reasons for New Covenant hymnody. You can read that here.

Here is the link to C.J. Mahaney’s interview with David Powlison. Powlison, as you will most likely know, is one of the leading figures in the biblical counseling movement and teaches at CCEF, Westminster Seminary’s Counseling Center.

Just after we left Tenth Presbyterian Church to go to Christ the King, Phil began a series of sermons on the book of Ecclesiates. I wish I could have heard them in worship but I have been listening to them online recently. They are an excellent resource for anyone wanting to go deeper into the details and the biblical theology of Ecclesiates. You can find the sermons in that series here. I do want to remind you that the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals owns the rights to Dr. Ryken’s sermons and so they will be taken off Sermon Audio after about seven weeks or so. You should download everything you can now!

I recently hired a friend to catalog my theological library. I did this for several reasons. The first is the fact that I needed proof of what I have in case I ever lost the books in a fire or some other catastrophe and needed it for insurance purposes. It would have cost me three times as much to have someone appraise the entire library (close to 3000 books), and would have taken much longer to do. The second reason, which is almost as important, is my need for a searchable database that lets me know what books I own and what sermons (particularly the Scripture texts) I have in my collection. When I prepare a sermon to preach, I frequently reference sermons that ministers in the history of the church have preached on that particular passage. In fact, I find studying historic Reformed sermons (i.e. sermons by the Reformers, Puritans, Scottish Presbyterians, Southern Presbyterians, etc.) to be the most profitable way to prepare to preach a passage. You get much more insight than commentaries usually give, precisely because these men condensed the materials found in the commentaries of their days into a 12-15 page message. This is time well spent. You also generally get more application than you find in commentaries.

So, all this is to say that I now have a thoroughly searchable library database, and I have it to share with others. Almost every volume of sermons has the individual sermons listed by text (Thanks to the meticulous work of my friend Ray). You have to figure out the best way to search for sermons, but if you simply use ctrl+f on Windows or Apple+f on Mac you should be able to breeze through the document. You also need to know that the sermons are numbered so that if you have a book of the Bible like 1 John you may need to make sure that you are not simply getting the number of the sermon (e.g. #11 John 10:5) in front of the sermon instead of the numeral 1 for the book. If that is confusing you can email me and I will try to explain it more carefully. I hope that this document will be a help to you as it is to me. If you ever need any sermon photocopied let me know and we can work something out.

You can find the Batzig Library Catalog here.

You can find the PCA Historical Center Reformed Sermon Index here.

A few weeks ago, I promised to put up the third lecture that Eric J. Alexander delivered at the 1999 Ligonier National Conference. The first lecture was titled, “Israel and the End Times”. The Second, “Interpreting Prophecy”. This lecture is on the 70 weeks of Daniel. You can listen below:

At least one reader of this blog will be interested to discover that there is a two volume set of sermons by Willard Preston, a former pastor of the Independent Presbyterian Church in Savannah, Georgia. He served the church in the first half of the 19th century. This collection was published in 1857. The sermon titles promise an abundance of good reading. Enjoy!

You can find volume 1 here.

You can find volume 2 here.

Feeding on Christ and Reformed Forum have decided to do a John Owen Giveaway. There will be two books to win, and two chances to win them. The first book we have decided to give away is a 1810 edition of John Owen’s Pneumatologia: or a Discourse Concerning the Holy Spirit. This book was published in Philadelphia, printed by and for William W. Woodward. It is a slightly abridged edition by George Burder. It is the first American, from the Second London Edition. The Second book is Carl Trueman’s John Owen: Reformed Catholic, Rennaisance Man published by Ashgate Publishing Co.

The rules are simply. Just add Feeding on Christ to your blogrole, RSS feed, or any other way you keep track of your regularly read blogs. You can add the RSS feed here. Then email us at giveaway@reformedforum.org and let us know you have done so. Please also let us know what state and/or country in which you currently reside. You will be automatically entered into the drawing.

For a second chance to win, subscribe to Reformed Forum, home to the Christ the Center podcast, here. Email us and let us know you have done so; you will be given another entry into the contest. Each individual is only allowed these two entries. (Please do not add both sites to multiply blogs in order to have more chances. You are only allowed two entries per individual.)

The drawing will be on December 1oth so don’t waste anytime in entering.

Here is the latest Christ the Center interview. We had the privilege of sitting down with Dr. Carl Trueman and speaking with him on the history of the Trinity throughout the New Testament church. Dr. Trueman is, of course, an expert on the writings of John Owen. His discussion of Owen on the Trinity is a very valuable source for seminarians and pastors.

Men interested in the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of Old School Presbyterian ministries will find the following addresses very helpful. They cover (I) Call to the Ministry; (II) Intellectual Preparation for Ministry; (III) Spiritual Preparation for Ministry.

I. Call to the Ministry or Missions:

(1) Plumer, William S. “Scripture Doctrine of a Call to the Work of the Gospel Ministry” You can find it here.

(2) Alexander, James W. “Considerations on Foreign Missions: Addressed to Candidates for the Holy Ministry” You can find it here.

II. Intellectual Preparation for the Ministry:

(1) Miller, Samuel. “The Importance of a Thorough and Adequate Course of Preparatory Study for the Holy Ministry” You can find it here.

(2) Hodge, Charles. “On the Necessity of a Knowledge of the OriginalLanguages of the Scriptures” You can find it here.

III. Spiritual Preparation for the Ministry:

(1) Alexander, Archibald. “An Address to Candidates for the Ministry: The Importance of Aiming at Eminent Piety in Making Their Preparation for the Sacred Office” You can find it here.

(2) Brown, John (of Haddington). “Address to Students of Divinity” You can find it here.

Give them to men considering seminary, to men in seminary, to ministerial colleagues and keep a copy for yourself.

T. Desmond Alexander, author of this very helpful book, has just come out with a new book, From Eden to the New Jerusalem. While I personally think that Alexander employs too much critical scholarship at times, this looks like it will be a profitable contribution in the realm of BT. You can also find a list of Dr. Alexander’s articles and essays here.

Paul Helm has a new article posted at Helm’s Deep. that deals with the issues surrounding the arguments posed by those who favor history (narrative) over against dogma (propositions). While Helm is not advocating propositions over narratives, he is trying to safeguard the necessity of propositions in the scheme of theology. In establishing his point, Helm uses this very convincing argument about the sinlessness of Christ. He writes:

A narrative-style study of the Gospel narratives may lead us to the reasonable conclusion that Jesus did not sin. From this we may justifiably conclude: ‘Jesus is sinless’ is true. Will that do, for dogmatic purposes? No, it will not. Crucially will not. For there was a time when it was true that ‘Adam is sinless’, but then he sinned, bringing death into the world and all our woe. If as a result of historical investigation we come to the conclusion that Jesus is sinless, this is indeed a striking conclusion, but it is dogmatically as weak as water. As weak as water even if we are able to conclude, on historical grounds that (unlike Adam) Jesus was always sinless.

This is not only a convincing argument, it is simply unanswerable. Interestingly, Geerhardus Vos, the great Redemptive Historical theologian, says as much when he explains that the apostles were the authoritative interpreters of the words of Christ recorded in the Gospels. You can read the rest of this article here.

C.J. Mahaney, Josh Harris, and Jeff Purswell have begun a podcast where they sit down and discuss topics of interest to pastors. The first four sessions deal with the pastor and his time, the pastor and his joy, the pastor and his soul, and the pastor and his reading. You can listen to the four sessions here.