Love is not a feeling. This relates to one of the most consequential matters, a right understanding of love. Love will produce feelings and the right ones. However, of itself, it isn’t a feeling. Feelings that are called love are actually lust. Love is very good, and lust is bad. Scripture teaches abstaining from lust. […]

The celebration of Christmas doesn’t need to be preserved, because it isn’t required by scripture. We’ve got to believe in Christ and we’ve got to believe in His birth and celebrate His incarnation, but we don’t have to celebrate the holiday. The holiday can much more easily be crafted into something humanistic and worldly, conformable […]

There is a tradition for Christians to celebrate Christmas. It’s not a difficult thing to do, because almost everyone likes Christmas. The world even likes Christmas. It’s like an ink blot of a rorschach test, where you can turn Christmas into almost anything that you want. Almost no one will be surprised to find out […]

The Apostle Paul writes in Romans 14:5-6, “One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord; and he that regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not regard it.” These […]

The history of worship according to the New Testament in the church involves elements of worship and circumstances of worship. These two relate to what has been called the Regulative Principle of Worship, which in the Westminster Confession of Faith reads: “The light of nature shows that there is a God, who has lordship and […]

When I explain the gospel, and as I teach it to our church, I start with ‘we’re all sinners, none of are good, we deserve a penalty, so we deserve Hell.’ That’s very unpopular, not the most unpopular but perhaps second or third most of what I say. After I’m done with that, I say, […]

The first time “sanctify” occurs in scripture is in Genesis 2:3, which says, “And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.” It is also the first time the Hebrew word that translates “sanctified” occurs. You can read that […]

If someone asked you what was the reason for God destroying Sodom and Gomorrah, most people would say, “Homosexuality,” where the term Sodomy came from. Ezekiel 16:49 explains, “Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she […]

The word “know” and all its forms occur 1,500 or so times in the Bible. “Know” assumes reality. In the Sermon the Mount, Jesus in Matthew 6:3 says, “But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth.” Of all that someone can see in this verse is the […]

I take strength from certain doctrines of scripture about our church, which all relate to God. When Jesus said, “my church” in Matthew 16:18, He was saying, “His assembly” (church translates ekklesia, which means, “assembly”). At that point, there was just one in number. However, there is just one, His church, as opposed to anything […]