A Site for the Teaching Ministry of Nick Batzig
When I sit back and read the deluge of thoughts and opinions online about what the church ought to be doing, I sense a noticeable lack of focus on the Gospel. In the many twitter rants that recur on a daily basis, there is a discernible deficiency with regard to Scripture and the Gospel. ...
It is the common lot of those God has called into gospel ministry to become discouraged on account of the challenges and trials that come from serving as a pastor. I can almost always sense when a brother is weighed down by the pressures, demands, and discouragements that come with serving as a pastor of a congregation, because I have known them throughout my own pastoral service. The apostle Paul intimated the challenges that pastors face in the church when he added to the external opposition he experienced from the unbelieving world the care that he had for the church. He wrote, "apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches" (2 Cor. 11:28). So what are ministers to do when they feel overwhelmed by the discouragements of ministry?...
We are meant to know that Jesus had to remain silent when he was judged so that we might have our mouths shut before the just tribunal of God. Then, having heard the sentence exacted against the spotless lamb of God, believers might open their mouths in praise to God for all the ways that He has removed their transgressions and the righteous condemnation that stood against us for Christ's sake. The silence of condemnation belonged to Jesus that praise for justification might be ours. ...
Sadly, many professing believers approach the gifts of the Spirit by overvaluing the idea of the miraculous spiritual gifts (e.g., tongues, prophecy, healing) and undervalue the common spiritual gifts (e.g., salvation and sanctifying fruit). Holding faulty views of the miraculous spiritual gifts is usually due to a failure to grasp the redemptive-historical purpose of the gifts. When we come to understand the biblical teaching about the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit and the ordinary gifts of the Spirit, we will better value the greater and continuing gifts in the life of the church today....
When each of the Old Covenant signs (i.e., the rainbow, Sabbath, circumcision, and the Passover) are viewed in light of the fulfillment of all that they typified, we come to understand a great deal about the work of Christ...
As we enter a new year with new personal goals and desires, the Lord wants His people to commit to Christian living among the members of the body. We must resist the urge to look to practices and programs in the local church to live out the Christian life or do the work of ministry for us. Our God has given us the enormous privilege and responsibility of diligently living out, daily, our Christian lives in Christ. Let’s commit ourselves to the practice of seeking to live the organic Christian life in the context of the local church to which we belong. ...
The reason why Mary sang a song of humility is because she was focusing on what God was doing to provide the Savior she needed. Mary had been waiting on God to fulfill the promises that He had made throughout the Old Testament era. Mary doesn't speak of herself or her privileges because Mary was focused on her need for redemption. ...
We rightly wonder of the coming of the eternal Son of God into the world in true human form while wrongly neglecting to wonder at the accompanying role of the Spirit of God in the ministry of the Redeemer....
In many of life’s circumstances, we struggle to understand how we will come to attain the promises of God, forgetting that their fulfillment is entirely based on the person and work of Christ. Jesus has secured an everlasting joy, an inheritance of hope for His people through His death and resurrection. Though we do not now see all that he has for us, we wait for him with patience. We are to be a people who trust in and wait for Christ in faith....
Talking about the Church is actually quite a difficult task, since Scripture speaks of the Church in a variety of ways. More often than not, individuals have failed to rightly distinguish between the different ways in which the biblical authors speak about the church. This, of course, raises the question, "What is the Church?" In order to give the most biblically robust a...
Keep ReadingIn serious-minded biblical churches, pastors rightly value theological rigor, biblical worship, exegetical preaching, corporate prayer, the right administration of the sacraments and the exercise of church discipline. However, one thing that does not seem to get the same emphasis in such circles is affectionate pastoral ministry. I'm not referring to the quasi-liberal so...
Keep ReadingSince the practice of the Lord's Supper has regained something of a focused treatment online in recent days, I thought it might be advantageous to focus on another important aspect of the Lord's Supper--namely, how and when should we bring our children to the Table. In doctrinally serious churches, welcoming the children of believers to the Lord's Supper is one of the mos...
Keep ReadingRecently, a video of Francis Chan surfaced in which he tries to explain what he now believes about the real physical presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper. Without wishing to dissect the many erroneous arguments Chan made about the unity of the visible church throughout the first fifteen hundred years of church history and the role of preaching in the early church, I do...
Keep ReadingRecently, I preached on the devastating consequences of Jacob's polygamous and incestuous marriage to Leah and Rachel. This was not the first time the Old Testament confronts us with the sticky problem of polygamy. It first appears in the genealogical record of Cain's reprobate descendants, where we read of Lamech's polygamous marriage and subsequent boastful defense of h...
Keep ReadingTheologians have frequently appealed to the internal testimony of Scripture as a substantiating proof of its divine authorship. For instance, B.B. Warfield, in his article "'It says;' 'Scripture says;' 'God says,'" takes note of the divine authorship of Scripture from the consistent way in which the New Testament introduces its Old Testament citations. Others have pointed...
Keep Reading2019 was the most transitional year we have had as a family, as I started a new job with Ligonier Ministries and a new pastorate at Wayside PCA on Signal Mountain, TN. The Lord was gracious to us each step of the way. I was able to write far more than I thought I would. As I like to offer a writing recap at the end of each year, here is a compilation of what I was able to...
Keep Reading"When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son,bornof woman, bornunder the law" (Gal. 4:4). The Apostle Paul wrote this glorious statement in order to impress the idea that all of human history centers on the person and saving work of Christ. Time was made for Jesus Christ. "The fulness of time" also refers to the two ages--the present evil age of this fallen...
Keep ReadingIn his Systematic Theology, Robert Letham explains the interrelationship between general and special revelation, when he writes, "We need special revelation, the Word of God, to understand general revelation properly. This was true before the fall, when Adam received verbal revelation from God as to the nature of his task. It is doubly so once sin entered, the human m...
Keep ReadingBy the time I turned forty, I had lived in twenty-five different houses in seven different states. Relocating became standard fare for me during what many call “the formative years.” By way of contrast, my wife lived in the same house until she left for college. For ten years, I pastored a church in a military town that has 400 percent turnover. I suppose that my upbr...
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