The bible tells us to sing, repeatedly. Across both Testaments, at home and in exile, before and after Jesus, to God and to one another. Why? I mean, why sing rather than, for instance, reading the bible out loud, in chorus? We do that sometimes, and it works. If we are serving each other
Every so often I go away on a conference to sharpen my preaching skills – in fact, I’m on one at the moment. Something like this has popped up in my diary every year since – well, since a long time ago, and it is one of the top two things that help me improve.
In a series of earlier posts I suggested that there is a whole banquet of New Testament activities that count as ‘ministry of the Word.’ It can’t be reduced merely to preaching sermons: there’s discipling, leadership, counselling, evangelism, apologetics – all need God’s Word opened and applied. But I’m pretty sure I missed one on
If you’ve enjoyed the impact of Sovereign Grace music in the UK, you won’t want to miss this conference with Bob Kauflin in March. Nathan Smith, pastor of Grace Church, Bath, who’s the organiser, writes this:- The conference will be held on 5th-8th March 2014, at The Forum, in Bath and hosted by Bob Kauflin
There’s a little flurry of atheist ‘churches’ at the moment. Meetings of like-minded secularists who listen to some music, hear a talk, reaffirm their views, have a collection, and then afterwards have a cup of coffee and some home-made cake. It’s very earnest (and therefore very funny), but they are deliberately trying to put into
Giving talks, obviously. Leading bible studies, of course. Perhaps some personal work, and reading a psalm with someone in trouble. But the first and most important duty of your bible is to feed you spiritually, and keep you connected with the head, the Lord Jesus. Because if the enemy can disconnect you from him, then
I recently stayed in one of those commercial, chain hotels, and it got me thinking about my experience and what was good and bad in it. So here are four positives: Helpful. The staff were on duty the whole time, and were attentive and efficient. They knew the answers to my questions, and pre-emptied several
The fatal slip happens so easily. We move from loving ministry because we love the Lord Jesus, to thinking that the Lord Jesus loves us because we love ministry, his people, his church. And before you know it, we are in the forsaken place where we teach grace to others, but preach and practice works
Just read proofs for ‘Encountering God Together’ by David Peterson – new book from IVP due out in Jan/Feb. It’s very, very good – so save up those Christmas tokens!
At the time of the Reformation the church had to learn that it had twisted some biblical vocabulary out of its biblical shape. The word ‘priest’, which is biblically a word ensuring free and open access of all of God’s people, who are all priests, had become limited to a few, who stood as
What, then, are we to make of the place of singing in our meetings? It was a major feature of the Old Testament Tabernacle and Temple, and even though there are fewer mentions in the New Testament, there are enough to indicate it was a normal feature of Christian life, individually and corporately, spontaneous and
