Exegesis

As the story opens in today’s passage, the people of Israel were finally at the place they had feared 40 years ago when Moses had sent men to spy out the land of Canaan. Upon their return, Joshua and Caleb had told them:

“The land, which we passed through to spy it out, is an exceedingly good land. If the Lord delights in us, he will bring us into this land and give it to us, a land that flows with milk and honey. Only do not rebel against the Lord. And do not fear the people of the land, for they are bread for us. Their protection is removed from them, and the Lord is with us; do not fear them.”

But the people did not listen to them. Instead, they listened to other spies who told them that “the people who dwell in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large. And besides, we saw the descendants of Anak there.” As a result, instead of fearing the Lord, they feared the men of Canaan.

So the people rebelled against Moses, seeking to stone Joshua and Caleb. Most importantly, of course, they rebelled against God. And because of their rebellion, they were condemned to die in the desert as they wandered through it for the next forty years.

Upon the death of Moses, Joshua was called to lead God’s people into the Promised Land, the land that God had promised to give to them through His covenant with Abraham. It was to be their land; no man would be able to stand before them all the days of their life. God would not leave them or forsake them. Their only task was to be strong and courageous in their conquering of the land. And though they committed to doing so, it wasn’t too long before the people began to fail in their commitment to the Lord. Joshua is the beginning of the story of the failure of God’s people to live up to their covenant responsibilities in the land, their failure to conquer the land as they had been called to do, the subsequent judgement of God upon the people (culminating centuries later in the two destructions of Jerusalem by Babylon and Rome), and in God’s covenantal faithfulness is maintaining a remnant of His people over time until the promised coming of the savior of His people in Jesus Christ and His inclusion in His kingdom of the Gentiles. Studying Joshua will help us to see our responsibilities in conquering the land (today, the entire earth) to spread God’s kingdom and understand how God has faithfully provided a Conqueror and King who will lead us in that conquest and provide our victory where earthly kings had failed us.

Resources

This study is designed to be a 17-week study with daily readings and questions five days each week. It is great for individual and group study.

It was prepared using Joshua: No Failing Words by Dale Ralph Davis. This is an excellent resource for individuals or group leaders. Of course, many others have written about Joshua. Here is a survey of several other authors looking at Joshua’s place in the Bible, organization, and themes. And here is a homily examining the fear of the Lord during the destruction of Jericho in Joshua 5:13-6:27.

You can download the study here.

The story of Ruth is one of the most beautiful stories in Scripture. By faith, a young gentile woman is delivered from a pagan land, blessed with a faithful husband, and gives birth to a son renowned through the land who becomes part of the lineage of Jesus Christ.

There is so much to the Book of Ruth that we could spend weeks talking about it. Now don’t worry, I’m not going to keep you here that long. But I do want us to spend a little time together so that we can share in the richness of the many stories that can be found in Ruth.

The story of Ruth is one of the most beautiful stories in Scripture. By faith, a young gentile woman is delivered from a pagan land, blessed with a faithful husband, and gives birth to a son renowned through the land who becomes part of the lineage of Jesus Christ.

This is a five-week study to help you walk through the book of Ruth. You can use it for individual or group study. It was prepared using some biblical commentaries. One I would highly recommend is Ruth: Under His Wings, by Rich Lusk and Uri Brito. A good commentary like this will be of great help to a group leader or an individual wanting to get the most from their study.

You can download the study here.

Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you are trying to accomplish something but the information you have to sort through to do so is so overwhelming that you are tempted to give up?

One example of this is the costs I incurred after my car engine stopped working one afternoon. It turns out that Kia engines of a certain date had a design flaw that caused them to seize. Kia replaced the engine for no charge and said I was eligible for reimbursement of rental car expenses. But now, after more than six months of effort, I still have not been reimbursed. And everyone at Kia I discuss this provides different, and apparently incorrect, information about how to resolve the problem. If it weren’t for the encouragement of my wife, I would have already given up.

In many ways the book of Ezekiel is much like this. It is filled with visions of whirling wheels and creatures with four faces; it’s setting moves from place to place, country to country, and time to time; and it speaks of people and events in strange lands and foreign times. The information overload can be overwhelming, and figuring out what the Lord wants us to learn from Ezekiel is no easy task.

Yet, if we work our way through Ezekiel, we will find that we indeed have a great need for the wisdom contained in it. Ezekiel teaches us that God is not far off but nearby, that as Christians we live in the presence of God each day. This makes digging into it very much worth the effort. So let’s spend a little time doing that today, focusing on Ezekiel 3:1-11; 5:5-17; and 36:22-32.

How many of you have heard of Curious George?

When my son William was younger, he often wanted me to read the story of Curious George to him at bed time. Of course, it always starts out the same way: “This is George. He was a good little monkey. And always very curious.”

And each story has the same theme. George intends to do well, but his curiosity gets the better of him, and he gets into trouble because of it.

In one story, George is washing apartment windows, and he promised not to be curious about what the people were doing inside the apartments. But George forgot his promise, and looked into one apartment where the painters were at work. He decided that painting looked like more fun than window washing, so went inside to try his hand at it while the painters were at lunch. Of course, when the painters returned, they weren’t very happy with George, and began to chase him. George jumped off a fire escape to get away from them, but broke his leg. As he sat in the hospital, George thought, “And it had all started out so nicely. If only he had not been so curious he could have had a lot of fun. Now it was too late.”

Have you ever been in a situation like that, where everything had started so nicely, but you managed to make a mess of things, and I was too late to do anything about it? To undo what you had done?  I know I certainly have, more times than I would prefer to remember.

Well, just think how Adam and Eve must have felt the moment they ate from the Tree of Knowledge, in violation of God’s commandment?

Do you pray?

I ask whether you pray, because prayer is absolutely essential to a person's salvation.

Do not misunderstand me. I am not saying that you can do anything to earn your salvation. I am not saying that it is your prayers that will save you. Salvation comes by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. It is God who even gives you the willingness and ability to pray. But of this I am sure: no where does Scripture tell us that anyone can be saved without lifting up his heart in prayer and asking for it.

For instance, in our passage from Romans we are told, “But what does it say? ‘The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart’ (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.”

As we leave the book of Joshua, in many ways all looks well. Israel had conquered much of the Promised Land. Israel had rest in the land. When Joshua had confronted the people of Israel about what they would do after he was gone, they had declared, "We also will serve the LORD, for he is our God."

Yet, there was still more to do. Not all of the enemies of God had been driven out. And there was another generation to be raised that had not seen God's mighty victories. And things started off well with more conquests.

Then, however, the people began to rest on their laurels rather than in God. "Manasseh did not drive out the inhabitants. ... When Israel grew strong, they put the Canaanites to forced labor, but did not drive them out completely." Worst of all, they failed to teach their children about God: "There arose another generation after them who did not know the LORD or the work that he had done for Israel."

Thus begins a constantly repeating downward spiral into unbelief:

• The people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the LORD
• The anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and he sold them into the hand of their surrounding enemies who oppressed the people of Israel cruelly for _______ years
• Then the people of Israel cried out to the LORD
• The LORD raised up judges, who saved them out of the hand of those who plundered them
• The land had rest for _______ years
• And the people of Israel again did what was evil in the sight of the LORD

The book ends with "In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes."

Yet, despite Israel's unfaithfulness, Judges is really a picture of the upward spiral of the steadfast love of God, who will never leave or forsake His people. Like Sodom, Benjamin deserved to be destroyed. So did Israel. Yet by God's mercy and grace, both survived. The 12 tribes remained intact, setting the stage for King David and his Offspring, the King whose "throne will be established forever."

This sixteen week study of the Book of Judges walks us through this journey, pointing us to the King that Israel had always had if they would have just opened their eyes.

Download a printable version of the Bible study.

A friend wrote this yesterday and I thought I'd share it:

"We can make our plans, but the Lord determines our steps." - Proverbs 16:9

You’ve heard the joke. “Want to make God laugh? Tell him you have a plan.”It might actually be funny if it were not so true. 

Today started out like most of my other days in the past few weeks. We had an early morning staff meeting, I got all my ducks in a row and headed off to volunteer for a while at my church. My plan was for all things to go smoothly. Instead, I found 8:30 pm found me finally finishing up on the last of my work projects that needed to be done before the day was over that I had no idea were on today’s schedule. 

In all honesty, if it had not been a day of glorious interruptions, things would have been taken care of much sooner. But God choose today to have old friends and treasured family check in. A dear friend called to catch up. My oldest niece surprised me with a call that absolutely warmed my heart. As I was on that call, some friends we have known for 45 years, but have not heard from in years called. They have recently moved to the area and drove past a real estate sign my husband has on some property and called him out of the blue. Then we got to fellowship with a couple who are like parents to me. That is a precious relationship when your own parents have been long gone. 

Each call set my schedule back further and further. And yet, here we are at the end of the day and all of my doings are done and it is not yet past my bedtime. It would have been possible to stick to my schedule and get things done earlier, but God’s plan was so much better. 

Thank you, Lord, for the surprises You give us each day. Help us to recognize those as the blessings they are, rather than the interruptions we perceive them to be. Amen.

As I work through Revelation for a Bible study, I'm putting together some notes. I'll be publishing them on a regular basis.

In 1:1-3, three themes stand out:

• The book of Revelation is a revelation and a prophesy; we should read it that way
• Revelation is telling us about some things that must soon take place
• The book of Revelation is blessing to those who read it, hear it, and keep it

I've using some great resources to help me work through the book. When you see italicized text followed by a name in parentheses, that is a direct quote from that person. Regular text followed by a name in parentheses means I borrowed substantially from that person in developing the idea, but the final statement is mine.

Let's get started in the text:

[1] The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, [2] who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. [3] Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near. (Revelation 1:1–3 ESV)

The book of Revelation can be intimidating. It is chock full of mysterious symbols: beasts, lampstands, Spirits, numbers, stars, seals, etc.

Yet we have to remember the book is a revelation from Christ to His servants. It is also a letter to His church, specifically the seven churches in Asia. Christ used this letter to communicate something to them, and subsequently to us. We should expect, then, for Revelation to be understandable. And thus we should expect to learn something from it.

Paul explains how this process of revelation to understanding works in Ephesians 3. He is telling the Gentile believers in Ephesus how they, who were once far off from God had been brought near by the blood of Christ. He then pauses to explain that while it was known to Old Testament faithful that God would bless the Gentiles, how that would exactly happen remained a mystery.

Paul goes on the explain "how the mystery was made known to me by revelation" (v. 1) and "revealed to His holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit" (v. 5). So now Paul can explain this mystery to believers in his day.

Christ's revelation to John worked the same way.

In a Bible study I attend, we had a good discussion yesterday on Hebrews 4, which draws parallels between the Israelites in the wilderness, the first Century Hebrew recipients of Hebrews, and even us today. The connection is that TODAY they and we were/are invited to enter into God’s rest. Not just His Sabbath rest He took after creating the world, but into His salvation rest Christ took after saving the world. They can share this with us because “good news came to us just as to them” (Hebrews 4:2); that is, the gospel was preached to them just as it has been to us.

We tend to think of the Gospel as being “even though we are sinners deserving God’s wrath, Jesus died for our sins so that we can have eternal life with Him.” And that is true. But the Gospel is presented to us in various ways. And has been presented to the world since the beginning, not just in the New Testament. We can see this is the first two chapters of Genesis which focus on three core presentations of the Gospel: marriage, light, and rest. Here are three passages show this, two that quote from Genesis 1 and 2 and the other from Genesis 2:

Ephesians 5:31–32: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. (ESV)

2 Corinthians 4:6: For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. (ESV)

Genesis 2:2–3: And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation. (ESV)

Let’s spend some time this weekend reflecting on the good news of our salvation as explained to us in the context of marriage, light, and rest.

In case you hadn't noticed, we live in a fallen world. We all have experienced  plenty of examples of this in our lives. We have lost loved ones: parents, spouses, and children. We have experienced strife and brokenness in relationships. We have witnessed crime and addiction. In short, we have sinned against others, others have sinned against us, and we have experienced the curse of death and enmity of God brought about by the fall of man in the Garden of Eden. 

The world today is a far cry from
how God designed and made it in the six days of creation. Creation has gone
from very good to what we see today. Yet God has had a plan to fix creation
from the very beginning. A plan that began with the baptism of Jesus which we
just read about in Matthew 3.

We might be tempted to say that
God's plan of restoring creation began with the establishment of Israel. In
some ways that is true, but Israel suffered from one major flaw: it was made up
of sinful men. So Israel couldn't actually do anything to undo the damage
of sin. Though it could serve as a model or an image of what was to come. 

As Matthew makes clear in his gospel, Christ is the True and Faithful Israel. The One who can repair the damage done by sin. And we see that in various parallels between figures in Old Testament Israel and Christ. These are blessings from God that we can see as we not only see and read the text of Scripture, but also listen to the echoes of the text. 

After Jesus was lifted up through the clouds into heaven, two angels appeared to the disciples, asking them, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven?"

Advent is a time of two comings: remembering Christ's first coming and looking forward to His second. Perhaps during this time, though, some of us have spent more time looking longingly--and impatiently--to Heaven thinking about His second coming as we sing, with Charles Wesley, "O come quickly, O come quickly, Alleluia! Come, Lord, come!" It is difficult to wait on God's plan for saving the world--every single sinful bit of it--while experiencing its very fallen nature all around us.

As we move into Christmas, though, our attention naturally shifts from heaven and the future to the very real presence on earth of a baby in a manger, who is our Immanuel, "God with us." This provides a good opportunity for us to seek comfort in the knowledge that, despite Christ's ascension, we are not alone and God's presence in Christ is manifest all around us today.

Perhaps the best starting place to see Christ manifested on earth is with His kingdom. After all, that is where He started. The first recorded words of Christ's ministry were, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand" (Matthew 4:17 ESV). Indeed, the kingdom of heaven was perhaps the primary theme of Christ's ministry on earth.

It was the focus of the first beatitude, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 5:3). Throughout the Gospels, there are about 100 instances of Jesus using the terms "kingdom of heaven," "kingdom of God," or "gospel of the kingdom." Most, if not all, of His parables are about the kingdom: "Then the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins ..." (Matthew 25:1 ESV).

Now muster your troops, O daughter of troops; siege is laid against us; with a rod they strike the judge of Israel on the cheek. But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days. Therefore he shall give them up until the time when she who is in labor has given birth; then the rest of his brothers shall return to the people of Israel. And he shall stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the LORD, in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God. And they shall dwell secure, for now he shall be great to the ends of the earth. And he shall be their peace. When the Assyrian comes into our land and treads in our palaces, then we will raise against him seven shepherds and eight princes of men (Micah 5:1–5 ESV)

Our lives today are consumed by the things we think we need. But this actually keeps us from seeing the one thing we need the most--Jesus Christ.

As Micah 5 opens, Judah was under assault from Assyria, i.e., Nineveh, not too long after the northern kingdom of Israel had been destroyed by them. Hezekiah is king. While a good king, frustrated by Assyrian rule, he attempted to overthrow Assyria's rule with his own strength. As a result, God allowed Assyria to invade Judah and lay siege to Jerusalem. 

The book of Acts gives us a picture of the growth of the early church. It also gives us a picture of the work God was doing through the Holy Spirit to establish the Kingdom of His Son. 

The period covered by Acts is unique in world history. It covers the transition from the old world order to the new. Christ defeated Satan on the cross then ascended to heaven and took His throne as our King around 30 A.D., but it wasn't until 70 A.D., a generation later (Matthew 24:34), that the old order of the temple, sacrifices, and the nation of Israel came to a complete end. 

Studying this period of time can be a great help to us as we live in a period not so much of transition but of completion. We live in the new heaven and new earth (Revelation 21:1-5), but it is a mere taste of what it will one day be. Studying the Acts of the Apostles is one way to help us work out our salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12-13) as we witness Christ at work making all things new. 

Download the 23 week study here. 

Are you hungry?

Well, in just a little while, when we are finished here, we will all leave to go have a meal to satisfy our hunger. Some of us may eat burgers, some of us fish, others of us even pizzas. Maybe some green beans or broccoli. The meals that some of us eat will taste better than the meals that others of us eat. But I doubt that many of us tonight will have a meal that we would call a feast.

But the good news is that we don’t have to wait until we are done to eat. We have already gathered together for a meal right here. And not just any meal. We are gathered together for a feast! “A feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine.” A feast of “fat” and “sweet wine.” A feast on the Word of God, Jesus Christ.

Though this sounds really good, you might be tempted to ask, “What does it mean to feast on Jesus Christ?” Or perhaps, “How do we do it?” These are the same type of questions asked by the people when Jesus spoke to them a few hundred years later in Capernaum.

During some recent conversations at my church about abortion, Republicans, the mission of the church, and the fulfillment of the cultural mandate, several questions came up about how the mission of the church relates to the cultural mandate and and also what sources have helped some us hold to a preterist and postmillennial view of Scripture.

I was brought back to that discussion today in church as we sang Rejoice, the Lord Is King by Charles Wesley. The hymn, which is heavily dependent on Scripture, lays out the optimistic, postmillennial view of Scripture better than anything I could write. Christ is King. He is sitting on His Throne. And He is conquering His enemies. Now. In history. And we can rejoice in this. In history. We don't have to wait to experience this until time has ended. Here are the lyrics:

Rejoice, the Lord is King!
Your Lord and King adore;
Rejoice, give thanks, and sing,
And triumph evermore:
Lift up your heart, lift up your voice;
Rejoice; again I say, Rejoice!

Our Savior Jesus reigns,
The God of truth and love;
When he had purged our stains,
He took his seat above:
Lift up your heart, lift up your voice;
Rejoice; again I say, Rejoice!

His Kingdom cannot fail;
He rules over earth and heaven;
The keys of death and hell
Are to our Jesus given:
Lift up your heart, lift up your voice;
Rejoice; again I say, Rejoice!

He sits at God’s right hand
Till all his foes submit
And bow to his command
And fall beneath his feet:
Lift up your heart, lift up your voice;
Rejoice; again I say, Rejoice!

What is shocking about the deaths of Abraham and Sarah?

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Conservatives are handicapped by human nature when seeking to convince liberals that their understanding of the world is wrong, that more government is not going to make things better. No amount of education or persuasion will get the job done.

God is not so handicapped. He created us and made us and sustains us. He can soften the hardest heart; in fact, He can give each of us a new heart with which we can know Him and more clearly see the world as He sees it.

For the truth is that less government ultimately won't make the world better either unless we also repent of our sin against God and confess Jesus as our Lord and Savior. Yes, less government will greatly improve the human material condition and lift millions, even billions, out of poverty. But without submitting to Christ this would be a prosperity that points us towards perdition.

Christians are saved by grace. No action of ours, or even a decision, saves us. We are saved because God gives us a new heart with which we are irresistibly drawn to Him.

Yet Scripture also makes it clear that we will never make it to heaven if we don't kill our sin and walk in holiness and love our neighbor.

How do we reconcile these two seemingly opposite teachings?

John Piper explains it all in his video, Kill Sin or it Will Kill You.

Most of us don't think of laziness as fatal. But John Piper lays out the deathly, eternal ramifications of unrepented laziness in this great discussion of Proverbs 26:13-16. And provides these questions to assist our study of this passage:

1. What is the difference between laziness and rest? How can you tell whether you are doing one or the other?
2. Read Proverbs 26:13–16. What does laziness do to the mind?
3. How will you plan to use your free time this week? How can you plan to enjoy rest but avoid laziness?

Many people understand the book of Revelation as portraying what is going to happen at the end of the world. This comes from what is known as the pre-millennial view, popularized in Tim LaHaye's and Jerry B. Jenkins' Left Behind series, which is a recent interpretation pushed by dispensationalists. Rather than see the Bible as a portraying the unfolding of God's covenant with His people, dispensationalists tend to divide biblical history into dispensations, i.e., different ages to which God has allotted distinctive administrative principles.

The historic view of the church has been the post-millennial view, which provides a more optimistic view of human history and, in the case of partial preterism, places most of the events of Revelation in the past.

I love reading learned theologians who mine the depth and richness of Scripture. Two of those show up in the article in this post, David Dorsey and Peter Leithart. Building off of Dorsey's analysis of the chiastic structure of Isaiah, Leithart points us to the central point of Isaiah:

The central narrative section is embedded between these two passages about trust, about political trust and about liturgical trust. They are linked by the message from the Assyrians, who urged Hezekiah and his people to abandon trust in Yahweh to deliver them from their political threats. Hezekiah trusts Yahweh, and the city is delivered.

In other words, a people and their leaders who trust in Jesus will be delivered from their enemies, including their own sin. The corollary would be those who hope in political alliances and leaders will fall. A good lesson for our time.

Read the rest of Leithart's article here.

The Kingdom Defined

"The kingdom of God can be defined as the new world order that Christ established in His life, death, and resurrection and ascension, a new order of things that will be fully revealed and established only at Christ's return." - Peter Leithart

“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” – Matthew 4:17

The Kingdom at Creation

• The Original Order of the Kingdom: God and Man
  • God is the King
  • Man is his vassal
• Original Government
  • God’s governance over man: “The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.” and “but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
  • Man’s governance over earth: “fill the earth and subdue it.”
  • Personal governance: order their life to obey God
  • Family governance: “for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.”
• The Original Work of the Kingdom: the Cultural Mandate
  • “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” - Genesis 1:28

Joshua’s Placement in the Bible

• The Jewish canon is divided into The Law, The Prophets, and the Writings. Joshua is contained in The Prophets
• In the Christian canon, Joshua is usually considered to be a historical book.
• David Dorsey includes Joshua as part of the historical conclusion of the books of the law, which is covered from Numbers 10:11 through Joshua 24:33
• Follows Deuteronomy, precedes Judges

Dating of the books

Deuteronomy: 1400 B.C

Joshua: 1400 B.C. to 1382 B.C.

Judges: roughly 1382 BC to 1065 BC

My new book, Feasting on Christ: A Bible Study on Love (available on Amazon and as a free pdf download), is the first in the Feasting on Christ Bible study series.

This study was originally prepared for use in prison. But that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have an application for those who have never been to prison. Like Joseph when he was sent to prison, we will be unjustly persecuted. Like Joseph, we will have our burdens to bear while waiting for the fulfillment of the promises of God. But most of all, like Joseph, we must learn how to deal with our own fallen nature and that of the world around us.

There are two paths that people follow in this world:

The Path to Destruction (Proverbs 2:12-19): "For [the] house [of the seductress] leads down to death and her paths to the spirits of the dead. None who go to her return or attain the paths of life."

The Path of Righteousness (Proverbs 12:28) "In the way of righteousness there is life; along that path is immortality"

This Study of Proverbs 18 is designed to help us see the difference between these paths. Differentiating between the two is often a particular struggle for men who often tend toward isolation.

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. (Galatians 5:22)

Are you experiencing these things in your life today? If so, what can you do today to thank God for these great gifts? If not, what can you do to submit to God in obedience and serve His will?

The kingdom of God is one of many themes provided to us in Scripture to help us better understand what God is speaking to us.

For Christ in His earthly ministry, the kingdom of God took center stage. He (along with John the Baptist) began his ministry with it:

From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (Matthew 4:17 - ESV)

So we too should work to ensure what we can learn from Scripture through this lens.

One thing we can learn is our mission as "sons of the kingdom." We were put on earth and instructed to “be fruitful and multiply” in order to prepare God's kingdom, which extends to the ends of the earth (Matthew 13: 38), as a suitable dwelling place for God and man together. No nook or cranny of God's kingdom should be overlooked by us in our kingdom work. This includes the public spheres of civil government, politics, and culture.

After all, Christ our King rules over all of these things:

Your throne, O God, is forever and ever, the scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom.” (Hebrews 1:8 ESV)

Jonathan Edwards says that people have a free will, the freedom to choose, but that “the mind chooses as it does because of motives.”

John Gerstner puts it this way:

“Your choices, as a rational person, are always based on various considerations or motives that are before you at the time. Those motives have a certain weight with you, and the motives for and against reading a book [for example] are weighed in the balance of your mind; the motives which outweigh all others are what you, indeed, choose to follow. You, being a rational person, will always choose what seems to you to be the right thing, the wise thing, the advisable thing to do. If you choose not to do the right thing, the advisable thing, the thing that you are inclined to do, you would, of course be insane. You would be choosing something which you didn't choose. You would find something preferable which you didn't prefer. But you, being a rational and sane person, choose something because it seems to you the right, proper, good, advantageous thing to do.

David opens Psalm 8 with these words:

O LORD, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens.
Out of the mouth of babies and infants,
you have established strength because of your foes,
to still the enemy and the avenger. (ESV)

Yahweh is proclaimed here the King of heaven and earth. Our King still reigns over His kingdom, so we should understand more about His kingdom and what role we play in it. This one week study, Psalm 8 - A Study on the Kingdom of God, will help provide a glimpse into this.

Our hearts may be willing, but our flesh is weak. Download this one week study designed to help men focus on their calling of Being a One Woman Man.

With special thanks to Douglas Wilson for his fine work on this topic, which provided much guidance for this study.

How many of you have heard of Curious George?

Almost every night when my son goes to bed, he wants me to read the story of Curious George to him. Of course, it always starts out the same way: “This is George. He was a good little monkey. And always very curious.”

And each story has the same theme. George intends to do well, but his curiosity gets the better of him, and he gets into trouble because of it.

This homily is adapted from J.C. Ryle's A Call to Prayer:

Do you pray?

I ask whether you pray, because prayer is absolutely essential to a person's salvation.

Do not misunderstand me. I am not saying that you can do anything to earn your salvation. I am not saying that it is your prayers that will save you. Salvation comes by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. It is God who even gives you the willingness and ability to pray. But of this I am sure: nowhere does Scripture tell us that anyone can be saved without lifting up his heart in prayer and asking for it.

This homily benefits greatly from the works of Peter Leithart and Daniel Doriani:

Human life is rife with envy. Envy whispers in our ear about a neighbor who has slightly more than we do—a nicer car, more recognition, a prettier wife, more accomplished children. Envy wants to silence praise for others and grows angry when praise continues.

Enslaved to envy, we rejoice at those who weep, and weep at those who rejoice. We become “insatiable in our outbursts against the happy.” When we don’t achieve our goals, we think, “If I cannot have something, no one is to have anything, no one is to be anything. Let the world perish!”

Envy boils up as hatred. Envy isolates. Envy breeds self-pity and victimization, for envy convinces us that if the world were fair we’d be on top.

How many of you struggle with impatience?

I know I do.

I struggle with impatience at work. I have a great job and am blessed in what I get to do and who I get to do it with. Yet things don’t always go my way at work. Sometimes others make decisions that I disagree with—even decisions about me.

I struggle with impatience at home. Being married and being a parent is a wonderful thing, a calling from the Lord with great blessing. But there are many challenges contained within these blessings, such as regarding managing our home and finances and parenting our son and directing his education.

This study is on love, the subject of the two great commandments, and the means of our salvation. It is all we are called to do. If we love God and those around us through Jesus Christ, we will be with God for eternity. My hope is that this study will help those who use it to “love loyally” with “hesed,” the steadfast love of God, as we are called to do in Micah 6:8. Here is the link to the study: Feasting on Christ: A Bible Study on Love