Nearness to God and Public Worship (Nye)

There are times in the Christian life when it seems like God is far away, when it doesn't feel like the Lord is near. We know Jesus promised to be with us always, but sometimes it just doesn't seem that way. To be sure, God's people throughout history have experienced this. More than a few…

The Seven Adverbs of Pastoral Duty (DPW)

 (This is a re-post from June 2012) Aside from writing the magnificent confession and catechisms, the Westminster divines also wrote a directory for public worship (DPW) which was approved in 1645.  One section of this directory that has always stuck out for me is where it explains the duties of the pastor in simple, clear,…

Church: A Waste of Time? (Bavinck)

 Herman Bavinck wrote the following words around 1890 in Holland, but they are quite relevant to our situation in the United States in the year 2019: Humility, as is rightly said, is the garment that always suits us... Humility must be our home and traveling and wedding and mourning garment.  In order to cultivate this…

Lord’s Day Worship x2 (Lloyd-Jones)

 In the history of Reformed churches, the Lord's Day practice has been to gather for corporate worship twice, usually morning and evening.  True, there is no command in Scripture to worship twice on the Lord's Day.  However, I would say that a person needs a good biblical reason not to come twice if his or…

Pietism, Subjectivism, and Christian Worship (Clark)

The pietist movement and subjectivism are two things - among others - that have corroded, watered down, and weakened Christian worship in our day.  When all the emphasis is on the self, feelings, experiences, and emotions, you know you're in the realm of pietism and subjectivism. In this type of worship, the objective truths of Scripture -…