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RTS and the Current State of Theological Education

Some of you may have seen this important article over at The Gospel Coalition about the decline and relocation of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (TEDS) by Collin Hansen, who is a graduate of the school. Reformed Theological Seminary has been friends with TEDS for many years. Over the years, a number of our faculty have done their studies there before coming to RTS, and a number of our graduates have gone on to do doctoral work there. We wish TEDS all the best in this new stage of their institutional life. The last twenty years have been tough for accredited graduate theological education…

By Faith, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and Moses…

If you have your Bibles, I'd invite you to turn with me to Hebrews chapter 11 as we continue our way through this great passage about faith. Every once in awhile we hear folks exhorting us to understand the Old Testament from a Christ-centered perspective – and that's good, and that's of course exactly what the author of Hebrews is going to do today, especially in the amazing verse 26 that we're going to read in this passage – but sometimes we hear people say, “If you expound the Old Testament in a Christ-centered way you will not use Old Testament characters as examples; that would be bad. That would be bad exposition and application. That would be a kind of moralism.” Now the problem with that criticism of course is that the New Testament uses Old…

By Faith, Abraham and Sarah…

If you have your Bibles, I'd invite you to turn with me to Hebrews chapter 11 as we continue our way through this book and through this great chapter on faith. The book of Hebrews, we have said all along, is about the great theme that Jesus is better. And trusting in Jesus means a life of faith, a life in which we base our whole hope on Him and on His promises. We just sang, “More than all in Him I find.” We put all of our hopes in Him. He is greater than any other treasure in life. So a life of faith means a life in which we base our whole hopes on Him and on His promises. And the author of Hebrews is explaining that by way of illustration in Hebrews chapter 11. In Hebrews 10:39 he says to the congregation, “You are those who are of faith. I know you believe. I know you believe…

Faith is…?

If you have your Bibles, I’d invite you to turn with me to Hebrews chapter 11. As you’re doing so, I want you to be sure to look at the last verse of Hebrews 10. You’ll remember last week, as we looked at Hebrews 10:26-39, we encountered a chilling warning passage, the main point of which is – if you turn your back on Jesus (because the whole theme of the book has been that Jesus is better; Jesus is the only Savior; Jesus is superior to anything offered anywhere else) if you turn your back on the only Savior, Jesus, there are dire eternal consequences. And you may be asking yourself the question, “How do you get from that kind of a warning in Hebrews 10:26-39, to a chapter on faith, in which the heroes of the Scriptures, Old Testament and New, who trusted God, are…

If We Go on Sinning Wilfully

If you have your Bibles, I’d invite you to turn with me to Hebrews chapter 10; we’re going to be looking at verse 26 and all the way to the end of the chapter. This is a hard, sobering, but important passage of Scripture. You may remember when we looked at Hebrews 6 together that I commented that Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones, the pastor of the Westminster Chapter in London, had remarked a couple of years ago that in his pastoral experience that misunderstandings of Hebrews 6 and 10 were very…

Draw Near, Hold Fast, Consider How

If you have your Bibles, I’d invite you to turn with me to Hebrews chapter 10. We’re going to be looking at verses 19 to 25 this morning as we continue our way through this glorious book. This is one of those turning point passages that you encounter in books of the New Testament. I know you’re familiar with them in the writings of the apostle Paul, for instance, in Romans. When you get to Romans 12 verses 1 and 2, you know you’ve turned a corner in that book. The first eleven…

Once for All

If you have your Bibles, I’d invite you to turn with me to Hebrews chapter 10 as we continue our way through this letter. The theme has echoed throughout the book that Jesus is a better Savior. He’s a better priest. He’s a better sacrifice. He’s the better mediator of a better covenant. And especially as we’ve looked at Hebrews 8, 9, and 10, the explanation of why Jesus is a better sacrifice has been very much on the author’s mind. And in this culminating part of that section, we…

For This Reason He Is the Mediator of the New Covenant

If you’ll turn with me in your Bibles to the book of Hebrews, chapter 9, we will return after a one week break – it’s been two weeks since we’ve been in this passage – to the argument of the author of Hebrews. And I’d invite you, even as you’re turning to Hebrews 9, to look at verses 15 to 28. Go ahead and allow your eyes to scan the first part of the chapter and let me remind you where we’ve been. The last time we were together in this book two weeks ago we looked…

The Holy Spirit is Signifying This

If you have your Bibles, I’d invite you to turn with me to Hebrews chapter 9. We continue to make our way through this epistle together. The argument has been made already in this book that Jesus is a better High Priest and is a mediator of a better covenant. One of the ways that the author of Hebrews argues that Jesus is a better priest is to say that He is a priest according to the order of Melchizedek. That is, unlike the Old Testament Levitical priesthood that descended from Aaron…

The Mediator of a Better Covenant

If you have your Bibles, I’d invite you to turn with me to Hebrews chapter 8. We’re beginning a new section of the book of Hebrews together, but I want to remind you where we’ve been already. In Hebrews 6:20, the author has reminded us again – he mentioned it twice in chapter 5 but it’s in Hebrews chapter 6 verse 20 – he picks up on the theme of Jesus as a priest according to the order of Melchizedek. And he continues and expands on that theme all chapter 7 long. And…