Like an athlete practices to compete or a soldier trains for war, we must devote ourselves to keeping the commands of our God. Diligence should mark the life of God’s people. For more resources for knowing and loving God's Word, visit bcnewton.co
The dogma that Love Is Love is most commonly associated with the LGBT movement and is a declaration that all love is truly love. Homosexual love is not a subordinate love to heterosexual love. Both are love and should be recognized as such. The simplicity of the statement adds to its appeal. After all, who really wants to be the person who calls someone else’s love a lie? Indeed, it has drawn in otherwise conservative persons by clothing itself in libertarianism. Increasingly, even those who vie...
Much as the first three commandments set our minds squarely upon how we ought to love God supremely with all our being, the three before us in this question focus upon how we ought to love our neighbor as ourselves. For more resources for knowing and loving God's Word, visit bcnewton.co
To keep the LORD’s testimonies, to hold onto them with all one’s might, seeking the Him with the entirety of the heart, must naturally lead to shunning all wrongdoing. For more resources for knowing and loving God's Word, visit bcnewton.co
Scientific consensus is not the same as truth. For more resources for knowing and loving God's Word, visit bcnewton.co
The two commandments before us are unique among the Ten . Only the Fourth and Fifth Commandments are not prohibitions. God prohibits idolatry, blaspheme, adultery, theft, and the others because He knows that we will commit such sins when given the opportunity. Likewise, He commands us to rest and to honor our father and mother because He knows that we will not do those things naturally. For more resources for knowing and loving God's Word, visit bcnewton.co...
The Ten Commandments are often divided into two tables, one pertaining to the love of God and the other describing how we are to love our neighbor. The most traditional division is between the Fourth and Fifth Commandments . The Fourth Commandment, after all, requires the remembering and keeping of the Sabbath day holy, while the Fifth Commandment demands honor to be given to our parents. Thus, the Fourth describes an aspect of our obedience to God, while the Fifth commands us to respect our ver...
Opening your home and providing for others is messy business; demanding the government to care for them is less intrusive to our personal lives while still feeling as if we have done something . For more resources for knowing and loving God's Word, visit bcnewton.co
Here the first three commandments are fittingly presented together, for these first commandments deal directly with how we are to worship and honor God as the only true and living God. To read this article and other resources for knowing and loving God's Word, visit bcnewton.co To read the full New City Catechism, visit newcitycatechism.com
The joy of the blessed is to seek Him, for all who seek will find. For more resources for knowing and loving God's Word, visit bcnewton.co
True feminism (if there is such a thing) ought to celebrate the unique joys and trials of women, rather than simply trying to be one of the boys. Women’s rights are human rights, for God made humanity both male and female. Should we lose that distinction, women’s rights will be sacrificed in the very pursuit after them. For more resources for knowing and loving God's Word, visit bcnewton.co...
After declaring His purpose for their deliverance from that very mountain, God gave to His people the Ten Commandments. Although the LORD gave many more laws and commands to the Israelites, these ten were especially significant, which is testified by God speaking them directly to the people rather than through Moses and by their being etched into stone and kept in the ark. They received this special treatment because the Ten Commandments serve as a succinct summary of God’s expectations for His ...
Having the ideal Sunday is kind of like having only green lights on the way to work and then being surprised with a promotion: if it happens, we certainly ought to give thanks to God, but we ought also to remember that we should not call it normal. For more resources for knowing and loving God's Word, visit bcnewton.co
Blessedness is hearing the same voice that formed light, say to us, “Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master” (Matthew 25:23). For more resources for knowing and loving God's Word, visit bcnewton.co
This is the first lesson from my 2021 teaching through the Secular Creed, An Appearance of Godliness . For more resources visit, bcnewton.co
Furthermore, we are not commanded to love our neighbor with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. That would be idolatry. Instead, we are commanded to love our neighbor as ourselves . That is, we are called to love them as fellow image-bearers of God, and especially of our brothers and sisters in Christ, we are to love them as those for whom Christ died. To read this article and other resources for knowing and loving God's Word, visit bcnewton.co To read the full New City Catechism, visit new...
Dead Men Preaching is a monthly series aimed at bringing sermons from the past into the ears of the present. This month's sermon is by John Witherspoon, a pastor and American Founding Father, on Psalm 76:10: "Surely the Wrath of Man shall praise thee; the remainder of Wrath shalt thou restrain . ” For more sermons and other resources for knowing and loving God's Word, visit bcnewton.co
I am calling this study An Appearance of Godliness because, I believe, that is exactly what the statements of the Secular Creed are. Paul warned Timothy of the godlessness that would crop up in the last days. For more resources for knowing and loving God's Word, visit bcnewton.co
What makes our pride so tragic is that God is joyous to exalt us so long as we are humble enough to bear His image rather than our own. Full submission to Him means becoming fully human and the earthly representative of God Himself. To read this meditation and other resources for knowing and loving God's Word, visit bcnewton.co
Obedience without trust would indicate that we do not properly know God. As a father, I would grieve at my children’s suspicious distrust of me, even if they still obeyed what I told them to do. Such distrust would indicate that my children do not know or do not believe my affection and compassion for them. In the same way, our distrust of God is most fundamentally a failure to believe in His Fatherhood towards us. To read this article and other resources for knowing and loving God's Word, visit...
More pride and self-esteem and affirmations and approvals are not the solution to our society’s divisive problem, for our elevating of pride into a virtue is precisely what foments divisiveness in the first place. For more rooted theology for Christ's unwithered church, visit bcnewton.co
The present-day brand of Gnosticism is a variant that might be called Digital Gnosticism since it replaces the spiritual world with the digital one. Like our brothers and sisters of the early church, we must be prepared to resist the going appeal to transcend our physical bodies through ever advancing technology. God made all creation very good, and we ought to reject any attempt to be liberated from it. To read this article and other resources for knowing and loving God's Word, visit bcnewton.c...
Where did all of this come from, and how did it escalate so quickly? How did things go so far off the rails? In asking such questions, we would do well to remember that fruit always begins as seeds. Or, to speak less cryptically, Pride Month did not happen overnight. To read this article and other resources for knowing and loving God's Word, visit bcnewton.co
Only humility is wise enough to see fully how perilous each day’s path is. Only the humble may avoid destruction by acknowledging how easily they may fall. For more rooted theology for Christ's unwithered church, visit bcnewton.co
Being made in His image, it is right that we would seek to know Him, love Him, live with Him, and glorify Him with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our strength. In the end, that is what it ultimately means to be human and to be made in God’s image. To read this article and other resources for knowing and loving God's Word, visit bcnewton.co To read the full New City Catechism and other resources, visit newcitycatechism.com...
This is my discussion of the final two chapters of Thomas Watson's book, Heaven Taken by Storm , from 2020. Visit bcnewton.co for more resources for knowing and loving God's Word.
The humble are humble precisely because they have a proper view of self. They know their sins, their failures, their shortcomings. Their self-understanding is not inflated and, therefore, is not likely to burst like a balloon at slightest prick of a pin. It is right, then, that the humble have wisdom. Their eyes are open to see the world as it truly is, for they have the resolve to see themselves as they truly are. For more resources for knowing and loving God's Word, visit bcnewton.co...
Dead Men Preaching is a monthly series aimed at bringing sermons from the past into the ears of the present. This month's sermon is by Charles Spurgeon on Hebrews 4:12: "For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” For more sermons and other resources for knowing and loving God's Word, visit bcnewton.co...
How can three be one and one be three? There is the profundity and the grand mystery that must be received by faith. Of course, if God really is infinite, then we should not expect to be able to fully explain every aspect of His divinity. Rather, we ought to bow our heads in humble gratitude that He would reveal such a marvelous truth to us at all. To read this article and other resources for knowing and loving God's Word, visit bcnewton.co To read the full New City Catechism and other resources...
This is my discussion of the seventeenth chapter of Thomas Watson's book, Heaven Taken by Storm , from 2020. Visit bcnewton.co for more resources for knowing and loving God's Word.
