Man-fishing, Despair, and Pride

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Benjamin Beddome was a Particular Baptist minister in England in the 1700’s. He is known also as an able hymn writer. In this post I would like to highlight one of his sermons on evangelism, or “man-fishing,” that was preached from Matthew 4:19, where Jesus said: “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of…



“Our great distinguishing characteristic.” H.H. Tucker and the Battle for Church Purity, Part 2

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  (See here for Part 1.) “Yet they stumble at the words:” Regeneration Remove the necessity of regeneration, Tucker argued, and you undermine the New Testament church; For Tucker, regeneration was the track upon which the train of theological orthodoxy traveled, pulling along all the graces of redemption–repentance, faith, justification, adoption, sanctification, glorification–in its path:…



Responding to Gathered Worship: With a Life of Worship

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Throughout this series on Gathered Worship in the House of God we have considered the role and responsibilities of God’s people in corporate worship. The first two parts of the study addressed preparing for and participating in gathered worship. In the third and final part we have focused on rightly responding to worship. A right…



Thinking on the Bodily Resurrection

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Hope. We use the word to express our preference about the weather, inclination about a sport team’s success, and desire for a birthday gift. While part of daily vocabulary, hope seems to be less seldom applied in its biblical use. Hope, in typical conversation, expresses a wish or desire that does not have any certainty….



Secret Places Where Grace Lurks

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The utterly safe place, with the most engagingly good people, uniting together in the most joyful, holy, and pure expressions of worship is by experience and theological principle Utopia in the present age—it doesn’t exist. There are no perfect people, no perfect places, no perfect systems, and no perfect churches. The world is fallen; it…



Book Review: Baptist Foundations ed., Dever and Leeman

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Mark Dever and Jonathan Leeman have edited a new ecclesiology volume titled Baptist Foundations: Church Government for an Anti-Institutional Age. This collection of interrelated chapters is intended to be a “distinctly Baptist volume good for seminarians, church leaders, and interested members” (xxi). They have assembled a solid list of contributors, representing three of the major baptist seminaries in…



“Our great distinguishing characteristic:” H. H. Tucker and the Battle for Church Purity, Part I

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In January of 1866, Baptist leaders in Virginia introduced a proposal that would integrate Southern Baptists and Disciples of Christ–Campbellites–into a single denomination. The development stunned many Baptists in the commonwealth, but editors of the Religious Herald newspaper supported the union of the two denominations with a level of enthusiasm that captured the attention of…



Responding to Gathered Worship: With Active Obedience

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Rightly responding to worship begins in the mind and heart. We hear and receive the Word of God as the Spirit of God works in us to help us understand and apply truth. As God’s Word brings conviction of sin, we respond with confession and repentance. As it reveals the promise of salvation, we respond…



The Gospel is about Words

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Paul did not pantomime the gospel to the Corinthians. He declared it in words. “Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you” (1 Cor 15:1). The word for “preached” is literally, “to announce the good news.” So he reiterates the gospel and how it consists in a body of…



The Shattering of Every Calvinist’s Dream

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One of the realities of life is that our greatest strengths tend to incubate the seeds of our greatest weaknesses. So a man who is decisive, proactive and determined to accomplish much good can be unsympathetic, dismissive and harsh. Similarly a woman who is thoughtful, careful and quiet can be passive, distant and self-absorbed. We…