Looking Forward | Looking Back (2024)

2024 was certainly something! If you have followed my writings here for some time, you may have noticed that my posts for the past several months have been fairly sparse. That has largely been for two reasons. First, broadly, life has weighed heavily (although not altogether negatively) upon our family. Inflation has greatly compounded the …

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Favorite Books of 2024

1. The Liberal Arts Tradition | Kevin Clark & Ravi Jain You will notice a decent number of education related books on this list. That is largely because I am haunted by the question how I can best use the next ten years to equip my seven-year-old for whatever the world looks like in 2035. The …

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A Letter to My Daughters on Books & Reading

Yesterday I finished writing today's sermon a bit earlier than usual, so I sat down to write a letter to my daughters, which is a practice that my wife and I have been doing since she was pregnant with our eldest. Looking at the books on my shelves, I just started writing down some thoughts …

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The Perilous Appeal of Satan

I have recently begun reading Milton's Paradise Lost, which I previously attempted to read a bit of last summer at the beginning of my journey through the major epic poems. But I rightly say that it was merely an attempt because I found its style to be far too difficult to enjoy. Now after a …

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Question 39: With What Attitude Should We Pray?

Having previously defined what prayer is, we might expect this question to address the content of our prayers. However, that is the following question: What should we pray? Yet the New City Catechism rightly places this question before that one. We should note this order well. When discussing prayer, it is all too easy to …

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On the Greek Exodus and John’s Prologue

Having discussed the Septuagint last week, we now dive into seeing how the Greek translation of Exodus may have influenced the prologue to John's Gospel. https://open.spotify.com/episode/0mHQPnTqyhnuvXhpC5W06R?si=cc305a6f51b1442a In Relatione (relevant links) The Lexham English Septuagint A New English Translation of the Septuagint (You can also read digital copies of each book here) Septuaginta: Reader’s Edition (this is …

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On the Septuagint

What is the Septuagint, and why is Greek translation of the Old Testament important to us today? Those are the questions before us in this episode. https://open.spotify.com/episode/35zDt0wNJBWl5GvqQIWVbE?si=GvBW6iPrRumQcfP-hEF5FQ In Relatione (relevant links) The Lexham English Septuagint A New English Translation of the Septuagint Septuaginta: Reader's Edition Gwendolyn's recommendation: The Man Who Preached Outside (George Whitefield) Ex Interrete (a …

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Adultery, Divorce, & Same-Sex Marriage

https://open.spotify.com/episode/2JPkDOzgTHsVWIfi0xgHmc?si=xU-pHpQ2RXey3dIF7bk6PQ Moving through the first section of the catechism, we have focused upon God's good design for human sexuality and some of the challenges that our sin-scarred world brings against them. In questions 3-5, we studied the goodness of being made male and female to image God, while questions 6-8 addressed the present-day challenge that …

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Question 37: How Does the Holy Spirit Help Us?

Now that we’ve established that the Holy Spirit is the Third Person of the triune God, we must turn our consideration toward His work. Since the Holy Spirit is our Helper, the question rightly asks How does the Holy Spirit help us? We could summarize the catechism's answer into the following statement: The Holy Spirit …

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Question 36: What Do We Believe About the Holy Spirit?

With this question, we officially dive into the third and final section of the New City Catechism, which focuses upon the Spirit, our restoration, and our growing in grace. We, therefore, begin with this very fitting question: What do we believe about the Holy Spirit? The Holy Spirit is God. That is the short answer, …

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