With the season of Advent quickly approaching, I will be giving away two Advent devotionals. The first is my own, and the second is Jonathan Gibson's Advent follow-up to Be Thou My Vision called O Come, O Come Emmanuel, which I am overjoyed to be using this year here at the Newton household! All you …
Few books of the Bible puzzle Christians as much as Revelation. Max Doner's two volume collection of sermons aims to help believers make sense of Revelation so that it can be read for the book of encouragement and comfort that it is (Doner is also offering it free to pastors!). While I am only about …
If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled. Colossians 1:23 Intending next Lord's day to enter upon the work of catechising, it will not be amiss to give you a preliminary discourse, to show you how needful it is for Christians to be well instructed in the grounds of religion. If ye continue in …
Continue reading A Preliminary Discourse to Catechising | Thomas Watson
https://open.spotify.com/episode/10ixCt2aXnH8iECb8n5SyN?si=X9jPa16qRP67WwheSw_jYA After expressing that our Redeemer must be both truly God and truly human, Question 22 addressed why the Redeemer must be truly human. Our present question brings us to the second part of that blessed truth: Why must the Redeemer be truly God? Since Jesus revealed Himself to be the eternal Son of the …
Continue reading Question 23: Why Must the Redeemer Be Truly God?
https://open.spotify.com/episode/0j3bGOn2BZvGGXXuNrGT2V?si=9pDFDn4tRf2hEMgWcJg6LA Questions 21-23 are particularly bound together. In Question 21, we confessed the truth that Christ’s hypostatic union, His true humanity and divinity, makes Him uniquely capable of being our Redeemer. He alone is able to mediate between the Holy One and sinful men because He is both God and man. Questions 22-23 now address …
Continue reading Question 22: Why Must the Redeemer Be Truly Human?
https://open.spotify.com/episode/5envUKev3Ayr9b60O79BpG?si=nF4_KAWnQ3m_mO3tdsYXNw In the garden, Adam and Eve needed neither redeemer nor mediator. They were free to bathe in the presence of God and to enjoy the world that He given them to steward. But they rejected their communion with God in a feeble attempt to seize even more power than God had already granted them. …
Continue reading Question 21: What Sort of Redeemer Is Needed to Bring Us Back to God?
Jonathan Gibson's book of liturgies for daily worship, Be Thou My Vision, was my first experience with bringing elements typically associated with corporate worship into my times of private worship, and I have not looked back since. Although devotional time ought to rightly be viewed as time that is explicitly devoted to the Lord through …
https://open.spotify.com/episode/1KsMAyIAiPhbYwS6NApizi?si=yAGRzZ36QHi7VdD90uUKFw Although much of the New City Catechism so far has been establishing the reality of our sin and condemnation that makes the gospel necessary, we finally arrived at that good news in the previous question, where we confessed that there is indeed a way for us "to escape punishment and be brought back into …
https://open.spotify.com/episode/5JdQsZpRhSguoT7EL6Zzyx?si=dcYo3aeeTCOhKcZJSvCX4A The New City Catechism is divided into three parts. The first part focuses upon God the Father, creation, the Fall, and God's law. The second part concerns Christ, redemption, and grace. The third part instructs us on the Holy Spirit, our restoration to God, and our growing in His grace. Although this is the …
https://open.spotify.com/episode/6aB9296UvJlkSJY3wAumXK?si=F0AoM0wmS7qHqeENoENHDg Since Question 6 our catechism established God's law and our inability to keep it as God requires, forcing us to conclude that we are, in our very nature, sinners and idolaters. Our present question follows logically and ought to be of the utmost importance: will God allow our disobedience and idolatry to go unpunished? …
Continue reading Question 18: Will God Allow Our Disobedience and Idolatry to God Unpunished?
