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  • Evangelizing Our Children

    from E. Calvin Beisner Jan 20, 2010 Category: Tabletalk Magazine

    Reformed Christians take comfort from Acts 2:39: “the promise is for you and for your children.” God’s promises are multi-generational. Paul’s assurance that children even of just one believing parent are “holy” (1 Cor. 7:14) reinforces our confidence, as does his statement: “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household” (Acts 16:31). Keep Reading

  • Out of Control

    from Ken Myers Jan 13, 2010 Category: Tabletalk Magazine

    In his book, The Way of the (Modern) World: or, Why It’s Tempting to Live as If God Doesn’t Exist, Craig Gay observes that one of the major preoccupations that defines modern culture is the quest for control. “The desire to maintain autonomous control over reality by rational-technical means is particularly central to the modern world.…[A] modern society is one in which the prevailing conception of the human task in the world is that of mastery by way of systematic manipulation.” Francis Bacon’s assertion that knowledge is power may well serve as a slogan for modern culture. To be modern is to believe that we can bring nature and history under our dominion. Systems of all kinds — political, economic, technical, educational, even spiritual — have been designed by modern men and women to extend and ensure that control. Of course, the desire to run the cosmos is nothing new. One of the irrational symptoms of human sinfulness from the very beginning is the belief that we mortals are more reliable in running the cosmos than God is. This attitude is not distinctively modern, but only the modern West has so thoroughly institutionalized this wicked presumption. Read More at Tabletalk Keep Reading

  • For My Good?

    from R.C. Sproul Jan 11, 2010 Category: Tabletalk Magazine

    In 1993, my wife and I were involved in an historic train wreck. The crash of the Sunset Limited into an inlet from Mobile Bay killed more passengers than any Amtrak accident in history. We survived that eerie accident but not without ongoing trauma. The wreck left my wife with an ongoing anxiety about being able to sleep on a train at night. The wreck left me with a back injury that took fifteen years of treatment and therapy to overcome. Nevertheless, with these scars from the trauma we both learned a profound lesson about the providence of God. Clearly, God’s providence in this case for us was one of benign benevolence. It also illustrated to us an unforgettable sense of the tender mercies of God. In as much as we are convinced that God’s providence is an expression of His absolute sovereignty over all things, I would think that a logical conclusion from such a conviction would be the end of all anxiety. However, that is not always the case. Of course, our Lord Himself gave the instruction to be anxious for nothing to His disciples and, by extension, to the church. His awareness of human frailties expressed in our fears was manifested by His most common greeting to His friends: “Fear not.” Still, we are creatures who, in spite of our faith, are given to anxiety and at times even to melancholy. Read More at Tabletalk Keep Reading

  • Uncontrollable Anxiety

    from Burk Parsons Jan 06, 2010 Category: Tabletalk Magazine

    In the middle of writing my column this month I deleted what I wrote and have started over because I just received word from one of my closest friends that his wife, pregnant with their long-awaited second child, might be experiencing a miscarriage. My heart is overwhelmed with sorrow not knowing what the future holds for them. As I write, my friend and his wife are on their way to the doctor’s office. Having experienced the miscarriage of our first child years ago, my wife and I can empathize with our friends. Those who have experienced the loss of a child not-yet-born know the fear and anxiety I’m speaking of. Words fail us as we try to express the pain of such loss. As a man, a friend, a pastor, I have few words of wisdom for him as he seeks to comfort his wife and as they both seek comfort from our sovereign Lord. Keep Reading Keep Reading

  • Columns from Tabletalk Magazine, January 2010

    from Tim Challies Jan 04, 2010 Category: Tabletalk Magazine

    The January edition of Tabletalk is out. This month's theme is "Anxiety and the Sovereignty of God." The issue explores the sovereignty of God in the face of anxiety. Contributors include R.C. Sproul, Ken Myers, E. Calvin Beisner, Paul David Tripp, Ed Welch and John MacArthur. We do not post all of the feature articles or the daily devotionals from the issue, so you'll have to subscribe to get those. But for now, here are links to a few select columns and articles from this month: Keep Reading

  • Tabletalk 2010 Bible Reading Plan

    from Tim Challies Jan 01, 2010 Category: Tabletalk Magazine

    You are undoubtedly aware that for many years Tabletalk has offered daily devotionals to guide you through the Bible over the course of the calendar year. But perhaps you did not know that there is also an associated Bible reading plan. Offering a daily reading from both the Old Testament and the New Testament, this plan will help you read the entire Bible in 2010. You can download it here in PDF format. Keep Reading

  • Resolving to be Resolved

    from Burk Parsons Dec 31, 2009 Category: Tabletalk Magazine

    It seems that every new year, we are caught up in a whirlwind of well-intentioned resolutions. With premeditated bursts of enthusiasm, those closest to us begin to take part in peculiar, and sometimes public activities that even cause neighborhood children to look puzzled. We find ourselves bearing witness to surprising edicts and seemingly self-conscious new year’s manifestos whereupon we are summoned to behold what sweeping changes may come — resolutions for impending dispositions, impossible diets, and impenetrable fortresses of discipline.  Keep Reading

  • Secular Eschatology

    from Gene Edward Veith Dec 29, 2009 Category: Tabletalk Magazine

    The Bible teaches that the universe had a beginning and that it will have an end. Christians believe this, though controversies about eschatology (the end times) have long roiled in Christian circles. It illustrates how profoundly the Bible has influenced Western civilization that secularists too have their eschatologies. The natural view of time is cyclical. The Bible also recognizes — and organizes — the cyclical nature of time. But in addition to affirming the sense in which time can involve recurring cycles, the Bible also teaches that time is linear. It has a beginning and an end. Not only that, time has a direction. It goes somewhere. This linear dimension of time seems to have been unique to the Hebrews in the ancient world. Even the Greeks, for all of their sophistication, knew only of a cyclical view of time. They had no concept of a creation from nothing for a specific purpose; rather, they posited a universe that was continually created and destroyed and created again. Keep Reading

  • Holiness

    from Keith Mathison Dec 21, 2009 Category: Tabletalk Magazine

    In the early centuries of the church’s existence, Christian apologists would sometimes appeal to the distinctively holy lives of Christians as evidence for the truth of Christianity. Would such an appeal be of any use today? According to numerous surveys, the behavior of professing Christians is not discernibly different from the behavior of those who profess other religions or no religion at all. The phrase one often hears on the lips of pagans who observe contemporary Christian behavior is: “The church is full of hypocrites.” This should not be. We worship a holy God who calls His people to be holy and who has provided the means by which they may be holy. The problem of lax and hypocritical Christianity is not a new one, and one of the best treatments of the entire subject is a classic written by J.C. Ryle (1816–1900), who served as the Anglican Bishop of Liverpool for twenty years. Ryle was a deeply committed and non-compromising evangelical Christian. In fact, Charles Spurgeon referred to him as an “evangelical champion.” His book Holiness has been reprinted numerous times since its original publication in 1879. It is deservedly considered a Christian classic on the subject of sanctification. It ranks up there with the work of John Owen on the mortification of sin. Keep Reading

  • The Big Picture

    from Robert Reymond Dec 19, 2009 Category: Tabletalk Magazine

    Since my article is appearing in this issue of Tabletalk magazine, I have a great opportunity to tell you young folk of the next generation about a pet peeve of mine with my generation when it comes to the reason for celebrating Christmas. Many people, as you know, celebrate not much more than “roasting chestnuts by an open fire, Jack Frost nipping at their noses.” But Christians surely know enough to know that Christmas means more than that. It surely has something to do with Jesus, doesn’t it? But what? This month a lot of sermons will be preached about Jesus’ incarnation. And taking its cue from the angel’s announcement to the shepherds on the plains of Ephrathah, my generation simply celebrates the “good news” that some two thousand years ago, in the words of the announcing angel, “unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior who is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:10–11). My generation tends to concentrate its attention in their worship services throughout the Advent season on the fact that Christ was virginally born a babe in Bethlehem. And that is about as far as they go in their thinking as they reflect upon the momentous fact that God became man through the miraculous conception of Jesus in the womb of the Virgin Mary. Keep Reading
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