Happy Reformation Day!

Happy Reformation Day! I hope you make much of this day and the truths it commemorates with you family and church this weekend. My family gathered around last night to listen to Max McLean’s wonderful rendition of Luther’s defense at Worms, “Martin Luther’s- Here I Stand” (available for free download through tomorrow!). He includes not …

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Patristics and Pastoral Preaching

In his volume on Jeremiah and Lamentations in the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, Dean Wenthe makes this comment: “It should also be noted that for all their imaginative and intellectual capacities, the Fathers remained pastors. Their use of the sacred Scriptures was not the abstract debate of the academy but the concrete pastoral care …

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Teaching People to Die Well

Justin Wainscott and Matt Crawford have recently posted helpful items on the importance of theology for helping us to live and die well. Justin reflected on the first two question s of the Heidelberg Catechism in light of preparation for a funeral and Matt quoted the trial of several early Christian martyrs in North Africa. …

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Hezekiah Harvey on Care of Souls

Here is another quote I used in my paper calling for a renewed emphasis on oversight of souls. This one is from the book on pastoral ministry by Hezekiah Harvey, prominent Baptist pastor and theologian in the 19th century Northeast US. The care of souls is the radical idea of the pastor’s office. he is …

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