Latest from Burk Parsons
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Genuine Love
from Burk Parsons Dec 02, 2010 Category: Articles
Words and their meanings have lexical, not to mention historical significance. In every culture and with every language, we must be mindful to use words carefully and not to allow the meanings of words to get lost in the relativistic vocabularies of those who could care less about the next generation and their understanding of words, their meanings, and the truths they represent. Keep Reading -
Unqualified Christians
from Burk Parsons Oct 04, 2010 Category: Tabletalk Magazine
This month's issue of Tabletalk looks at the marks that distinguish followers of Christ from followers of the world and the practices that define who and what a Christian is. In his editorial introduction to this issue Burk Parsons writes about words--about their importance, their meaning, their ability to serve as qualifiers. Keep Reading -
Encountering Absolute Rest
from Burk Parsons Sep 03, 2010 Category: Tabletalk Magazine
"All human beings are made in the image of God, and all human beings know God created them, whether or not they want to admit it. We know that God created us with an insatiable desire for goodness, truth, and beauty. By nature we know we need these three things and that we need them absolutely." This is how Burk Parsons begins to introduce the subject of this month's issue of Tabletalk which looks to God as the foundation of all that is good, true, and beautiful. Keep Reading -
Church Growth and the Sovereignty of God
from Burk Parsons Jul 27, 2010 Category: Tabletalk Magazine
It seems that every time I meet a pastor from another church, he asks me the common, unsolicited, ecclesiastical question of the twenty-first-century: “How big is your church?” Most pastors are usually a bit confounded when I respond: “I don’t know.” It’s only when I am pressed for an answer that I provide him with the number of families in our congregation. But if I am in a good mood I may simply explain that our church consists of people of every color and language and is as big as the world-wide church of Christ. It is my hope that in some, small way I might help other pastors obtain a better perspective on the size, growth, and health of the church, locally and globally. Keep Reading -
Life and Worship Matters
from Burk Parsons Jul 05, 2010 Category: Tabletalk Magazine
As I write this article I’m in Louisville, Kentucky, attending a conference called “Together for the Gospel.” Pastors, elders, and seminarians have gathered together for fellowship and worship around the theme: The Unadjusted Gospel. More than seven thousand men from various evangelical (gospel-preaching) churches with various liturgical traditions are standing together as we sing some of the greatest hymns (from both the seventeenth and twenty-first centuries). Keep Reading -
We’re One, but We’re Not the Same
from Burk Parsons Jun 02, 2010 Category: Tabletalk Magazine
If it’s new, it’s likely not true, and if it’s true, it’s likely not new, or so the saying goes. Generally speaking, when someone uses the word new to describe something old, I’m not only not impressed but usually a bit puzzled and often a bit concerned. Although the phrase the “New Calvinism” has been around for centuries in one form or another, the recently popularized use of the phrase is largely attributable to Time magazine’s March 12, 2009, cover story “10 Ideas Changing the World Right Now.” Number three on their list? The New Calvinism. In God’s providence, Time’s journalistic efforts helped to shine an even bigger spotlight on a global movement many of us have been aware of for quite some time. Keep Reading -
Set Apart to Live and Die
from Burk Parsons May 04, 2010 Category: Tabletalk Magazine
When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer was about thirty years old when he penned these words in his classic work The Cost of Discipleship. Eight years later he was executed for his crimes against the Third Reich. The prison doctor who witnessed Bonhoeffer’s execution wrote, “In the almost fifty years that I worked as a doctor, I have hardly ever seen a man die so entirely submissive to the will of God.” The doctor’s words could not have been more appropriate to describe not only the manner in which Bonhoeffer submitted himself to God in death but also the manner in which he submitted himself to God in life. In his life and at his death, Bonhoeffer grasped one crucial truth: To be set apart to God is to be set apart to die, to die to sin, to self, and to life itself — to take up our crosses daily and to live unto Christ and embrace the true freedom that only comes when Christ calls a man to die and live abundantly in Him. Keep Reading -
Taking Captive All Things
from Burk Parsons Apr 05, 2010 Category: Tabletalk Magazine
Not too long ago my family and I were eating at a local restaurant known for its home style southern cuisine and quaint family atmosphere. As we were leaving, I couldn’t help but notice a family sitting together, and each one of them — Dad, Mom, big brother, and little sister — was engaged in a conversation with someone else, somewhere else in a galaxy far, far away. With shoulders hunched down and their eyes staring lifelessly into their electronic mobile devices, their frantic fingers typed away as their carefully placed emoticons (electronic emotional images, such as smiley faces, sad faces, etc.) presumably took their appropriate places as emotional substitutes for their dispassionate, electronically glowing faces. Keep Reading -
The Acts of the Spirit and the Apostles
from Burk Parsons Mar 03, 2010 Category: Tabletalk Magazine
You might be surprised to learn that Saint Andrew’s, the church where Dr. Sproul and I serve as pastors, has many members who have come from Pentecostal and charismatic churches. When they join our congregation I urge them not to leave behind the Holy Spirit. There seems to be a tendency for believers within some Presbyterian and Reformed churches to forget about the person and power of the Holy Spirit. Although historically this is not the case and although doctrinally it ought not to be the case, sadly it often seems to be the case. Keep Reading -
Justification for Everyone
from Burk Parsons Feb 02, 2010 Category: Tabletalk Magazine
For years we have wrestled with the question as to whether we should produce an issue of Tabletalk devoted to the new perspectives on Paul on the doctrine of justification, and for years we concluded that many of our readers would be generally unaware of what has been, until recently, an academic discussion among studied churchmen the world over. However, with the release of N.T. Wright’s popular-level book What Saint Paul Really Said, coupled with his international ministry among laity and winsome personality, his popularity and teaching have spread like wildfire from the seminaries to the pulpits to the pews of churches around the world. Keep Reading
