Clive Staples Lewis once noted the problem of chronological snobbery.  This is the temptation to think the lastest is greatest and that the newer is truer.  With Lewis I agree that one should read old books as well as new ones.  In fact, Lewis argued for reading more old books than new ones.  He said that the fresh, bracing sea-breezes of the ages blow through our minds when we read writers from other eras.  Lewis was not suggesting that older authors were infallible.  That would be a form of reverse …

Alexander Brown preached the following messages at Independent Presbyterian Church in Savannah, Ga. Alex is presently an intern at Independent Pres. Alex is from Dundee, Scotland. He studied at the Free Church College in Edinburgh, Scotland:
The Hidden Reefs (Jude 5-16)
Press On (Jude 17-25)
A Deliberate Salvation (Ephesians 1:5-6)
The Lord is a Shield (Psalm 3:1-7)

Our ‘leap of faith’ here means that we have now jumped from mid-way of volume three (Sin and Salvation in Christ) into the beginning of volume four: Holy Spirit, Church, and New Creation in Bavinck’s magisterial Reformed Dogmatics. Some have suggested that faith is a ‘leap in the dark.’ In the movies, as in real life, this view of faith often comes down to the climatic moment that cuts the blue wire or dashes to the train station before she leaves forever. In Bavinck’s ongoing contest with modernism and the …

Westminster Theological Seminary has posted a video of Lane Tipton speaking about Calvin and the doctrine of union with Christ. He places an important emphasis on the person of Christ. As being united to this person the benefits are mediated to the believer. In Him we have our justification, sanctification and adoption.  “You first possess Christ and then in Christ you are justified.”

I am pleased to announce that a very close friend of mine, Matt Holst, has received a call to pastor Geneva OPC in Woodstock, Ga. Matt is presently a pastoral intern at Cambridge Presbyterian Church in Cambridge, England. Matt and I attended Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary together. I am thrilled to know that he will be following Dr. John Fesko as the minister of this particular congregation. After Matt finishes the ordination process he will be installed at Geneva sometime in the fall, Lord willing! If you live in the …

Johan Huibers, a Dutch contractor by trade, built a full scale replica of Noah’s ark. Watch a video tour.

Other Links

Just Genesis

Satan’s “Take and Eat:”
Genesis 3:4-5: But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die.  For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
Jesus’ “Take and Eat:”
Matthew 26:26: Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.”
Commenting on Satan’s temptation of Adam and Eve and Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness, Ligon Dunan said:
Do you …

James Dolezal discussed Calvin for the Craig Center at Westminster Theological Seminary.

Google Books and Internet Archive are amazing resources. 17th, 18th and 19th Century books that once took years to find, and that cost far too much for most seminarians and pastors, are now available in PDF format for free. Among the multitude of volumes you want to download (in addition to all the commentaries Spurgeon recommends in Commenting and Commentaries) are the following 19th Century gems:
Sermons of Moses Hoge (Hoge was one of the key influential figures on Archibald Alexander, first Professor at Princeton Seminary. This particular copy happened to …

Lester Ruth, Associate Professor of Worship and Liturgy at Asbury Theological Seminary, in his article “Lex Amandi, Lex Orandi: The Trinity in the Most Used Contemporary Christian Worship Songs” offers a very impressive analysis of the presence of the Doctrine of the Trinity, or lack thereof, in modern praise and worship songs. You can read it here. Of course, this could be leveled against some older hymns as well.
HT: Bob McDowell

Recently we had the opportunity to have Dr. John Fesko, Academic Dean and Associate Professor of Systematic Theology at Westminster Seminary California, back with us on Christ the Center. We were able to talk with Dr. Fesko about his newly released book on the Ten Commandments The Rule of Love: Broken, Fulfilled and Applied. You can listen to this episode here.

Proverbs 30:8-9 is one of the most frequently quoted portions of Scripture. A quick blog search will uncover a seemingly endless number of references to it. Yet, for all this, it is evident that the later part of the passage is emphasized with almost no thought to the first part of verse 8. Even the best commentaries in the history of the Christian Church (William Arnot, Charles Bridges, and Ralph Wardlaw) fail to make the connection.
In verse 7 Agur, son of Jakeh, prays, “Two things I ask of You deny …

The Holy Spirit writes:  ”The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.” 1 Corinthians 15:56
In his new book focusing on this verse, Chris Vlachos writes:
“Now if the Eden account was indeed the source of the Apostle’s catalytic notion of the law, and he considered the law-problematic to be primeval, it would seem to follow that the fundamental problem which the law posed for Paul would not have been its ‘legalistic misuse;’ Eve was enticed to trangress the law, not fulfill it.  Nor would it have …

Today at 5 p.m. EST we will be interviewing Dr. Guy Richard (pronounced ‘Rishaard’) on Christ the Center. Guy is the senior minister of First Presbyterian Church in Gulfport, MS. He is a very bright man with a real pastoral heart. Guy did his doctoral studies at New College, Edinburgh on the theology of Samuel Rutherford in regard to Rutherford’s Examen Arminianismi. You can find the published version here. You can read Ligon Duncan’s review here. Guy also has an interesting story behind the circumstances surrounding his call to First …

Wilhelmus á Brakel’s (1635-1711) pastoral theology is warm and deserving of its title, The Christian’s Reasonable Service. Á Brakel’s understated style and manner of writing is thoughtful, practical, and highly adaptable for ministers looking to convey real truth without fancy tricks or bling. To prove it Reformation Heritage Books is having a special offer: Receive an additional $10 off the 4 volume set of Brakel’s Reasonable Service from now until August 15, 2009. Simply enter this coupon code Brakel2009 in the RHB shopping cart, or mention this post if ordering …

I am pleased to announce that a long lost manuscript by the late Rev. Dr. Greg L. Bahnsen has been published by American Vision and Covenant Media Press.  It is entitled Presuppostional Apologetics:  Stated and Defended and can be obtained here.  This is a systematic treatment of the Van Tillian method of defending the faith and includes assessments of Gordon Clark, Edward J. Carnell, and Francis Schaeffer.  This volume provides a nice complement to this, this, and this.  Be on the lookout for a full review sometime in the near …

J. I. Packer writes:
“Holiness is a matter of being Jesus’s disciple, of listening to His word and obeying His commands, of loving and adoring Him as one’s Redeemer, of seeking to please Him and honor Him as one’s Master, and so making ready for the day when we shall see Him and be with Him forever . . .
This Jesus-centeredness is the basic form of Christian holiness, and it is to this that the Spirit leads us all in His sanctifying work. The holiest Christians are not those most concerned …

I have recently listed some 17th and 18th century antiquarian Puritan and Reformed titles on Ebay. All of them have been rebound in beautiful calf leather. There is only 1 day left to bid on most of them. The 1647 Jus Divinum has 3 days to go. You can see all of them here. I have set a very reasonable reserve price.

For some time now I have been interested  in the typology of Israel in relation to Christ and the NT church. Among the books I have found helpful are David E. Holwerda’s Jesus and Israel: One Covenant or Two, O. Palmer Robertson’s The Israel of God, Hans K. Larondelle’s Israel in Prophecy: Principles of Prophetic Interpretation, and Meredith Kline’s Kingdom Prologue. James Dennison also wrote a very helpful article that appeared in Banner of Truth Magazine, Issue 171 – December 1977, pp. 6-11, 32. This particular article is titled “The …

Readers of Feeding on Christ will know that I am a big fan of Shai Linne’s hip hop. The following song is powerful because it represents the seriousness of the call of the High Priest and the holiness of the work to which he was called:

As I have had the privilege of teaching a Sunday school class on the life of John Calvin I have come to see how important the worship of the one, true and Triune God was to him.  It was the contention of the Reformed wing of the Reformation that the true worship of God had been compromised in the decades and centuries leading up to the Reformation.  It was the restoration of true worship that was the goal of much of Calvin’s reforming efforts.  This has led me to consider …

This afternoon we are interviewing Thabiti Anybwile on Christ the Center. We will be speaking with him about his latest book May We Meet in the Heavenly World: The Piety of Lemuel Haynes The feed will be live here. You can also sign into the chat room here. Reformation Heritage Books will be giving away two copies randomly to those who are listening to the show at 4 p.m. EST.

K. Scott Oliphint discusses John Calvin’s influence upon apologetics.

Edwards wrote:
“We are as much saved by the death of Christ, as his yielding himself to die was an act of obedience, as we are, as it was a propitiation for our sins: for as it was not the only act of obedience that merited, he having performed meritorious acts of obedience through the whole course of his life; so neither was it the only suffering that was propitiatory; all his suffering through the whole course of his life being propitiatory, as well as every act of obedience meritorious …

I find it strange that much of the teaching of the New Perspective(s) on Paul has been received so favorably in the Protestant world since the principle argument (i.e. the hermeneutical starting point) is one and the same with the Roman Catholic old perspective on “works of the law.”Proponents of the New Perspective on Paul act as though their interpretation of “works of the law” is altogether new when in fact they have simply popularized what they have learned from the Roman Catholic scholars they read. Jonathan Edwards, 250 years …

It seems that the followers of N.T. Wright continue to suggest that he does not deny the imputation of Christ’s righteousness. Beside the fact that he has made a career out of criticizing the Reformers on their doctrine of justification (specifically in regard to the sufficiency of the imputed righteousness of Christ), it is fair to say that Wright explicitly denies the imputed righteousness of Christ throughout many of his books and lectures. One very clear instance of this is found in his August 2003 Rutherford House lecture “New Perspectives …

The panel of Christ the Center had the privilege to sit down with Dr. Richard Gamble to speak with him about his recently released The Whole Counsel of God . It was a really enjoyable interview! You can listen to it here .

Spurgeon said:
“I have heard of some good old woman in a cottage, who had nothing but a piece of bread and a little water, and lifting up her hands, she said, as a blessing, ‘What! all this, and Christ too?’”
(In Kerry James Allen, Exploring the Mind & Heart of the Prince of Preachers (Oswego: Fox River Press, 2005), 90.)

Here is a list of 10 books by professors of Old Princeton and Westminster Theological Seminary that I have greatly benefited from and wish that every pastor would read. The issues dealt with in these volumes are timeless. These men had an extraordinary depth to their understanding of Scripture. Some of these titles are not as well known as others which they authored. I would recommend almost everything that these men wrote, but these books have been particularly helpful single volumes. I am glad to see that some of them …

Ligonier ministries has decided to have several one-day-only offers until the end of the week. Starting today they are giving away a full years subscription to Tabletalk Magazine with a donation of any amount. You can find out about this particular offer (which is only offered until the end of today) here .