It is important for church members to understand the kinds of decisions that are made at General Assembly. They signal broader movements in evangelicalism in America, but more importantly, they affect the way our pastors pastor, our elders rule, and our ministries do ministry. And so, they affect you.

As a church, while we will benefit from wisdom wherever it is offered, we will not be making new parenting fads the core of our parenting philosophy. The basics around what the Bible teaches about being a Christian parent are more than sufficient for nurturing children in the grace and truth of Jesus Christ.

How can our Father love us and hate our sin at the same time? How should we imagine God’s disposition toward us as we wrestle through life in the flesh? The Scriptures are complex on this topic, but when we fit them together, we see that ultimately, God wants us to know what a good Father he is, wants us to take sin seriously, and wants us to be assured of his love and our salvation.

If you have to choose between Christ and your spouse, the choice must be Christ. Christians should be committed to marriage but not yield their identity to it.

Are pastels and Easter baskets a distraction? Is an egg hunt fitting for Resurrection Sunday?

It is very clear that the early church used wine and not grape juice. Grape juice did not even exist in Jesus’ day. It was an invention of the 19th century and was a part of the prohibitionist movement. Up until that point, using wine in communion had been the universal practice of the church in all her branches, Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox.

As much as his book makes valuable observations about how Genesis 1 sees the world as a temple in which God seeks to dwell and make his home, there were two underlying assumptions that guided his reading of Genesis that seem to be deeply problematic and, ultimately, just wrong.

In this article, we outline the holidays within the calendar that we celebrate, and how that looks in practice. Our hope is that you are able to join in the celebrations with more understanding and thus find them to be more fruitful experiences.

The priesthood and the eldership of the Old Testament and the ministry and eldership of the New Testament are unmistakably male offices. If the diaconate in the New Testament broke with this pattern, the change would have represented a dramatic revolution in biblical polity.

There is a very human desire to participate in seasons and commemorate important events. It is important to follow the Reformed instinct and seek an answer from the Scriptures, to discover if the historical church calendar has a foundation in the Scriptures or if it solely grew out of church tradition.

The basics of the pastoral argument are that the Bible gives us permission to regard the children of believers as Christians who need to be discipled, not unbelievers who need to be converted.

The basic promise of God’s covenant with his people in the Old Testament was to be a God to them and to their children after them. In fact, the Lord gave the lavish promise to those who love him that he would be a God to their descendants to a thousand generations.

The Word of God is central to our life as a church. It is the power by which God speaks and creates a Bride for his Son. For us to give God’s Word the reverence, love, wonder, faith, and obedience it deserves, we must think carefully about the role it plays in our life together. 

One of the primary ways Christians throughout history have passed down the faith to their children is through catechisms and confessions.

Church is not a lecture hall but a family gathering at our Father’s table.

The question came up recently, “If the Bible says to obey church leaders, is it ever okay to go against your pastor?”

A church member asked me this past week about what the Bible teaches about women in leadership in the church. There are two ways to answer that question.

A position paper from the session of Christ Church Bellingham on ordained & commissioned officeholders, representative participation in worship & women exercising teaching authority.

A position paper from the session of Christ Church Bellingham on God-given roles in the Bible & the church.

A paper from the leadership of Trinity Church Seattle explaining their decision to have ministerial staff wear pastoral uniforms.