From your Pastors

"Stealing threatens the social order and causes pain to others by undermining the ability to possess with sure access things that are useful and needful. The food thief makes others go hungry; the work animal thief interrupts farming; the kidnapper tears apart a family; the clothing thief makes another suffer from the sun or the cold." Douglas K. Stuart "Stealing may conv...

"Now he prescribes capital punishment, not as a deterrent-deterrence is not discussed-but as a signal that murder is in a class by itself, in that it kills a being made in the image of God." Don Carson "God takes cognizance of the emotions from which the acts of hate may spring, and calls us to account as much for the angry feeling as the murderous deed. Words also come u...

The Bible has a deep revulsion to this kind of disrespect, treating it with a kind of horror. When I was a youth pastor, I once took my high school students through the Biblical passages that deal with disobedience to parents. Not surprisingly, by the time I finished reading these passages, the kids in my youth group were very quiet. Like most young people, they had always...

"Whatever it does to help people recuperate from being physically tired, this is incidental not primary." Douglas Stuart "Jesus was not abolishing the canonical authority of the Old Testament but correctly orienting it to terminate in his own authority. D.A. Carson explains that 'the OT's real and abiding authority must be understood through the person and teaching of him...

"All the people were hearing the voice of God just as Adam, Eve, Noah, Abraham and the patriarchs heard it and as Moses heard it earlier at Mount Sinai when God first called him." Douglas Stuart "Unlike the first two commandments, here God refers to himself in the third person. There is a special reason for this. First God said, 'You shall have no other gods before me' (E...

"'The jealous God'-doesn't it sound offensive? For we know jealousy, the green-eyed monster as a vice, one of the most cancerous soul-destroying vices that there is; whereas God, we are sure is perfectly good. How, then, could anyone ever imagine that jealousy is found in him? God's perfections are matter for praise-but how can we praise God for being jealous?" J.I. Packer...

"The spiritual reality for many of us is that the one thing is not the Lord. And the danger in that reality is this: your one thing will control your heart, and whatever controls your heart will exercise inescapable influence over your words, choices and actions. Your one thing will become that which shapes and directs your responses to the situations and relationships of ...

"Jesus insistence that the had come not to 'abolish' but to 'fulfill' the law and the prophets deserves to be ranked among the most important New Testament pronouncements on the significance of the law of Moses for the new Christian era...Integral to Matthew's gospel is a scheme of salvation history that pictures the entire Old Testament as anticipating and pointing ...

Last week, Desiring God featured an article by our dear pastor's wife, Carolyn Mahaney. In it, Carolyn talks about how studying the book of Ecclesiastes has served her soul. In her words, "Ecclesiastes has shown me the secret of enjoying life, even in the midst of trouble. It has rescued me from disillusionment when labors I thought were fruitful appeared to be for naught....

Dear Friends,This week Desiring God featured an excellent blog-post by our very own Bob Kauflin. Several years ago, the Lord sustained Bob through a very dark season. Check out his story of God's grace and consider sending it on to someone who may need this gospel-centered perspective and encouragement....