Pastor's Blog

In his letter to the Colossians, in which Paul takes great pains to tell his readers that nothing needs to be added to what Christ has done for our redemption, he writes, “In him you have been made complete” ( Col. 2:10).  We are complete in Christ because of who he is and because of what he has done for us . Who is Jesus? He is a man like no other. He is quite literally in a class all by himself. People sometimes speak of the world’s great religious leaders and mention Jesus along with the likes of Buddha, Muhammad, Confucius, Zoroaster, Gandhi, and even Abraham and Moses. But when they speak this way, they are not speaking accurately.  Why? Because Jesus is utterly unique. These other men were only men—fallen, sinful human beings like the rest of us. Jesus, on the other hand, is the image of the invisible God (Col. 1:15). He is the divine Word made flesh (Jn. 1:1, 14). He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature (Heb. 1:3)....

Some wit once observed, “In the beginning God created man in his own image; and man, being a gentleman, returned the favor.” [1] This is a humorous way of making the point that Calvin made in his Institutes :  “The human mind is, so to speak, a perpetual forge of idols.” [2]   The advantage the first saying has over the second is the addition of the fact that the idols men forge tend to look an awful lot like their forgers.   This is true, not only with respect to the false conceptions people have of the Father, but also of the Son. Not finding the real Jesus (the one presented to us in the pages of Scripture) much to their liking, they refashion him into their own image. They don’t like Jesus as he is , and so they imagine him to be what he is not. This imaginary Jesus, not surprisingly, is one who happens to agree with them and endorse their agenda. Thus, we find Jesus re-imagined as a woman, as a homosexual, as an animal rights activist, as a card-carrying Democr...

The Word Became Flesh  A Study in John ’ s Prologue, pt. 2 John 1:1-18 December 30, 2012 The Gospel of John is in many respects very different from the other three Gospels. Matthew, Mark, and Luke are often grouped together and called the synoptic  Gospels. The word comes from two Greek words. One of these,  opsis , means to view . The other, syn , means together . The synoptic Gospels, then, view the life and ministry of Christ together, which is to say, they record many of the same events. John, however, written sometime after the other three, chooses to record a number of things the other Gospel writers omit, and to omit a number of things which they record.           I agree with Bishop J. C. Ryle ( 1 ) that the things that are peculiar to John ’ s Gospel are among the most precious possessions of the Church. They are among the most cherished truths of Scripture. None of the other Gospel writers has given us such a full account...

The Light Shines in the Darkness  ( audio ) A Study in John's Prologue, part 1 John 1:1-18 December 23, 2012     1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The first thing to note is how similar the beginning of St. John’s Gospel is to the beginning of Genesis. Surely you have noticed it. They both begin with the phrase, “In the beginning…” It is undoubtedly John’s intention to take our minds back to Genesis with its narrative of creation. In Genesis we read, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1). John begins his narrative of Jesus Christ—his Gospel —similarly, with the same point of reference, “in the beginning.” In the beginning of what, you might ask? In the beginning of all things. At the point of the origin of the universe. And why does John wish us to think about that particular moment in history? In order to affirm several very remarkable things about our Lord Jesus Christ. W...