I am editing for publication a brief piece on the Psalms and came back across this beautiful quote from Spurgeon on the Psalms: “Above all, I trust that the Holy Spirit. has been with me in writing and compiling these volumes, and therefore I expect that he will bless them both to the conversion of …
This summer (June-July) I will get to teach a class I’ve been dreaming of for years- Portraits of Pastoral Ministry in Modern Novels. I already teach our regular Pastoral Ministry class where we walk through key biblical texts while reading seminal texts on pastoral ministry from the 6th century to today. We seek to understand …
Continue reading ‘Summer Class- Pastoral Ministry in Novels’ »
At church this evening we sang a John Newton hymn, which I don’t remember ever singing before- “Behold the Throne of Grace”. I enjoyed it immensely so I looked it up once I got home, and have pasted the full poem in below. This is great example of a poetic exposition of scripture with pastoral application. …
Each year I keep a list of the books I read all the way through, typically with brief notes, as a way of tracking my thoughts and a way to look back on each year and see some of what influenced me. So, in this post I have drawn from that list some of the …
Recently I had the opportunity to preach at my home church, First Baptist in Jackson, TN. We are currently in a series through the book of Revelation so the text up that week was Revelation 3:7-13, the message to the church in Philadelphia. I have taught this text various times, but I felt like in …
Each year I keep a list of the books I read all the way through, typically with brief notes, as a way of tracking my thoughts and a way to look back on each year and see some of what influenced me. So, in this post I have drawn from that list some of the …
I had the opportunity this past Sunday to preach at First Baptist, Jackson, TN, where my family and I are members. We are currently in a series through 1 John so my text was 1:8-2:2, a beautiful passage which describes the reality of the hope for forgiveness of sins. You can watch the sermon here: …
Continue reading ‘Forgiveness of Sin, Sermon on 1 John 1:8-2:2’ »
I’m really enjoying Sinclair Ferguson’s book, The Whole Christ. Among other things, it is a very helpful exposition of grace and the free call of the gospel to all people. In the section below Ferguson is discussing the trouble of legalism and pastoral ministry. I think it is a wonderful portrayal of a pastor. This will …
Continue reading ‘A Godly Pastor is a Grace-filled Pastor’ »
In any task one must keep in view the ultimate end or purpose. This is true for pastoral ministry as well. In the final assignment for my pastoral ministry class I always ask students to state the ultimate aim of pastoral ministry. Richard Baxter provides a good answer to this question: “The ultimate end of …