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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…

He Knows Me, and Still Loves Me

Turn in your Bibles if you have them, with me, to Psalm 139. I too have been looking forward to this psalm but also in some sense dreading it. It's hard to live up to Psalm 139. It's so exalted; it's very precious in our hearts. We just had a funeral here this last week and one of the verses out of this psalm was the family verse of that sister in the Lord who went home to heaven. Perhaps there are many of you who have a particular verse in Psalm 139 that speaks deeply to you, that's meant a great deal to you in the course of your Christian experience. A number of years ago, believe it or not it's been over fifty years ago now, an Anglican clergyman named J.B. Phillips who was a Cambridge scholar and translated the New Testament and wrote a number of books, wrote a…

Living in Light of Jesus’ Return: A…

The Lord's Day Morning August 5, 2012 “Living Life in Light of Jesus’ Return: A Pastor's Exhortations” 1 Thessalonians 5:12-15 The Reverend Dr. J. Ligon Duncan III If you have your Bibles, I'd invite you to turn with me to 1 Thessalonians chapter 5. We’re going to be looking at four brief verses today, from verse 12 to 15, of this passage. John Stott, in his wonderful commentary on this passage in The Bible Speaks Today series, calls this section, running from verse 12 down to verse 28, “Christian Community” or “How to be a GospelChurch.” Well that's a great title for this section and he in fact outlines it in three parts. He's looking, of course, a little bit further than the passage we're going to study today, but in verses 12 and 13 he says,…

How Can I Thank You Enough, Lord?

If you have your Bibles, I'd invite you to turn with me to Psalm 138. As you’re turning there, allow yourself to look at the headings of the next several psalms. In fact, if you’d look at the headings of the psalms from 138 all the way to 145. Tonight we are beginning a group of eight psalms, all of which are attributed to David. These are the last psalms in the Psalter that belong to David. He wrote almost half of the songs and these eight songs are the final ones included in the Psalter of Scripture from the heart, from the pen, from the hand, from the life of David. This psalm is in three parts. As you look at it before we read it tonight, note first of all in verses 1, 2, and 3, David is once again in trouble. Don't you have to pause and say, “Lord, thank You that You…

Living in Light of Jesus’ Return: A Theif in the…

The Lord's Day Morning July 22, 2012 “Living Life in Light of Jesus’ Return: A Thief in the Night” 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11 The Reverend Dr. J. Ligon Duncan III If you have your Bibles, I'd invite you to turn with me to 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 as we continue our way through this letter of the apostle Paul. As you’re turning there, let me remind you that at the end of 1 Thessalonians 4 and in these first verses of chapter 5, Paul is addressing specifically the issue of the return…

We Wept, When We Remebered Zion

Psalm 137 is not for the faint of heart. It's a sobering lament and it's a song of resolve and it's a song of curse. It's set in the context of I think what is fair to say the most traumatic event that the Old Testament church ever experienced. The exile to Babylon simply sucked the air out of the life of the Old Testament people of God when it happened. They were utterly unprepared for it. They’d been warned by God's prophets for a century that judgment for their sin was…

Living in Light of Jesus’ Return: A Reason for…

The Lord's Day Morning July 15, 2012 “Living Life in Light of Jesus’ Return: A Reason for Hope” 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 The Reverend Dr. J. Ligon Duncan III If you have your Bibles, I'd invite you to turn with me to 1 Thessalonians chapter 4. We’re going to begin in verse 13 today. In this passage, Paul is speaking about the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now we've said all along as we've studied this letter of Paul that his theme is teaching Christians how to…

Relentless, Consistent, Everlasting, Committed Love

If you have your Bibles, I'd invite you to turn with me to Psalm 136. As you turn there you’ll notice how many phrases and how many similarities there are between this psalm and the psalm that we studied last Lord's Day Evening, Psalm 135. There are a few items I want to draw to your attention, some of them that you will see in the psalm itself as we prepare to hear the reading of God's Word. In the Jewish tradition this psalm was known as “The Great Hallel.” Now you’ll…

Living in Light of Jesus’ Return: A Call to…

The Lord's Day Morning July 8, 2012 “Living Life in Light of Jesus’ Return: A Call to Brotherly Love and Neighborly Witness” 1 Thessalonians 4:9-12 The Reverend Dr. J. Ligon Duncan III If you have your Bibles, I'd invite you to turn with me to 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 verse 9. You remember last Lord's Day the apostle Paul gave us a sober but timely word about sexual fidelity in an immoral world and he continues exhortations to us and to the Thessalonians in this passage this…

For the Lord’s Renown!

If you have your Bibles, I'd invite you to turn in them with me to Psalm 135 as we continue to make our way through the fifth book of the Psalms. Every verse of this psalm either echoes or quotes or is quoted by some other part of Scripture. The psalmist himself rummages through the inspired Scriptures of the Old Testament and pulls together themes out of the writings of Moses in Exodus and Deuteronomy, phrases from other psalms, and then other psalms turn around and quote this psalm and…