Sermon for Sunday Evening, January 23rd, 2022 at First Presbyterian Church at Unionville, NY (BPC) Scripture reading: [Act 4:32-5:11 ESV] 32 Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything …
Sermon on Acts 4:32-5:11 – “Just Say No to Communism” Read More »
Sermon for Sunday, January 23rd, 2022 at First Presbyterian Church at Unionville, NY (BPC) Old Testament Reading: [1Ki 17:17-24 ESV] 17 After this the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, became ill. And his illness was so severe that there was no breath left in him. 18 And she said to Elijah, …
Sermon for Sunday, January 16th, 2022 at First Presbyterian Church at Unionville, NY (BPC) Old Testament reading: [Exo 30:1-10 ESV] 1 “You shall make an altar on which to burn incense; you shall make it of acacia wood. 2 A cubit shall be its length, and a cubit its breadth. It shall be square, and …
Sermon on Exodus 29:1-46 – “What Does it Take to be Clean?” Read More »
In 1979 Covenant Seminary professor J. Barton Payne died from a fall while climbing Mt. Fuji on sabbatical in Japan. In 1996 Denver Seminary professor Bob Alden died of a heart attack shortly after hiking in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. I had learned about each of these cases some years ago, but conflated them …
The hiking deaths of two Old Testament professors. Read More »
Sermon for Sunday, January 9th, 2022 at First Presbyterian Church at Unionville, NY (BPC) Old Testament reading: [Exo 27:9-21 ESV] 9 “You shall make the court of the tabernacle. On the south side the court shall have hangings of fine twined linen a hundred cubits long for one side. 10 Its twenty pillars and their …
Sermon on Exodus 28:1-43 – “The Glorious High Priest” Read More »
Things got busy in 2021! So while I read around 100 books a year each of the last few previous years, in 2021 I managed to read only 27 books. What happened? Well, in July my wife gave birth to our second child (and first son, Birch). While Birch has been generally a smiley boy …
This is entirely my own definition; I think of homesteading as a situation where you have a property that somehow makes you some money rather than you merely paying rent or a mortgage on it. It is not necessarily the case that the property “pays for itself.” Even if you can make a few hundred …
Sermon on Luke 2:1-7 – “A Christmas Message to Remember” Sermon for Friday, December 24th, 2021 at First Presbyterian Church at Unionville, NY (BPC) Scripture reading: [Luk 2:1-7 ESV] 1 In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. 2 This was the first registration when Quirinius …
Sermon for Sunday, December 19th, 2021 at First Presbyterian Church at Unionville, NY (BPC) Old Testament reading: [Exo 27:9-19 ESV] 9 “You shall make the court of the tabernacle. On the south side the court shall have hangings of fine twined linen a hundred cubits long for one side. 10 Its twenty pillars and their …
Sermon on Matthew 18:15-20 – “Directions for Corrections” Read More »
I have often seen Christians doubt their salvation because of concerns over whether they have sufficiently repented of their sins. Their mindset is something like this: “I’m told I must repent to be saved, but I keep sinning, therefore I must not be saved.” This mindset, however, generally misunderstands the nature of Biblical repentance and …
Sermon for Sunday, December 12th, 2021 at First Presbyterian Church at Unionville, NY (BPC) Old Testament reading: [Exo 27:1-8 ESV] 1 “You shall make the altar of acacia wood, five cubits long and five cubits broad. The altar shall be square, and its height shall be three cubits. 2 And you shall make horns for …
Sermon on Exodus 26:1-37 – “Seeing Christ in the Tabernacle” Read More »
Sermon for Sunday, December 5th, 2021 at First Presbyterian Church at Unionville, NY (BPC) Old Testament reading: [Isa 7:10-17 ESV] 10 Again the LORD spoke to Ahaz: 11 “Ask a sign of the LORD your God; let it be deep as Sheol or high as heaven.” 12 But Ahaz said, “I will not ask, and …
Sermon for Sunday Evening, November 28th, 2021 at First Presbyterian Church at Unionville, NY (BPC) Scripture reading: [Act 4:23-31 ESV] 23 When they were released, they went to their friends and reported what the chief priests and the elders had said to them. 24 And when they heard it, they lifted their voices together to …
Sermon for Sunday, November 28th, 2021 at First Presbyterian Church at Unionville, NY (BPC) Old Testament reading: [2Ch 7:1-6 ESV] 1 As soon as Solomon finished his prayer, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the LORD filled the temple. 2 And the priests could …
[From a letter of J. Oliver Buswell Jr. to John W. Sanderson Jr., October 19, 1940] “Note that I am in the habit of using the word ‘dispensationalism’ to refer to that doctrine which teaches that certain portions of the Scripture are ‘on legal ground,’ or in other words that in certain parts of the …
[I find Buswell’s comment here interesting since his friend Gordon Clark would make the same argument (that Barth is hopelessly contradictory) in his 1963 book “Karl Barth’s Theological Method.” Buswell is making that argument a decade earlier in this quote from 1950 in “The Bible Today”, June-September 1950, p. 261-262.] “Barth is always changing. My …
[This is the first in a series of short “Buswell Bites” I hope to post in time. This first “bite” comes from J. Oliver Buswell’s 1926 address to Wheaton College upon his inauguration as president there. Comments very welcome.] “In the lives of many individuals, the process of maturing in Christian thinking ceases when the …
Sermon for Sunday, November 21st, 2021 at First Presbyterian Church at Unionville, NY (BPC) Old Testament reading: [Exo 24:1-18 ESV] 1 Then he said to Moses, “Come up to the LORD, you and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel, and worship from afar. 2 Moses alone shall come near to …
Sermon for Sunday, November 14th, 2021 at First Presbyterian Church at Unionville, NY (BPC) Old Testament reading: [Exo 23:1-9 ESV] 1 “You shall not spread a false report. You shall not join hands with a wicked man to be a malicious witness. 2 You shall not fall in with the many to do evil, nor …
Sermon for Sunday, November 7th, 2021 at First Presbyterian Church at Unionville, NY (BPC) Old Testament reading: [Gen 1:26-31 ESV] 26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the …
Sermon for Sunday Evening, October 24th, 2021 at First Presbyterian Church at Unionville, NY (BPC) Scripture reading: [Act 4:13-22 ESV] 13 Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus. 14 But seeing the …
Sermon on Acts 4:13-22 – “Right in the Sight of God” Read More »
Sermon for Sunday, October 17th, 2021 at First Presbyterian Church at Unionville, NY (BPC) Old Testament reading: [Exo 21:33 – 22:15 ESV] 33 “When a man opens a pit, or when a man digs a pit and does not cover it, and an ox or a donkey falls into it, 34 the owner of the …
Sermon on Exodus 21:33-22:15 – “Making Restitution” Read More »
Sermon for Sunday, October 17th, 2021 at First Presbyterian Church at Unionville, NY (BPC) Old Testament reading: [Exo 21:1-32 ESV] 1 “Now these are the rules that you shall set before them. 2 When you buy a Hebrew slave, he shall serve six years, and in the seventh he shall go out free, for nothing. …
Sermon on Exodus 21:1-32 – “General Equity of the Law” Read More »
Sermon for Sunday, October 10th, 2021 for First Presbyterian Church at Unionville, NY (BPC) meeting during Fall Outposts Retreat at Tuscarora Inn, Mt. Bethel PA. [Psa 25:1-22 ESV] 1 Of David. To you, O LORD, I lift up my soul. 2 O my God, in you I trust; let me not be put to shame; …
