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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…

On The Sabbath They Rested

The Lord's Day Morning November 27, 2011 “On The Sabbath They Rested” Luke 23:50-56 The Reverend Dr. J. Ligon Duncan III If you have your Bibles, I'd invite you to turn with me to Luke 23. We’re going to be looking at verses 50 to 56 today, so we’ll come to the end of the chapter as we continue our way through the gospel of Luke. We've been looking at the crucifixion of Jesus and now Luke brings us to the ultimate point of Jesus’ humiliation — His burial. And he goes into much detail about facts surrounding Jesus’ death and burial. He's showing us the reality of Jesus’ death in the details of His burial and there are important theological reasons why he would go into so much detail about the burial of Jesus. As we read this passage today, I want you to be…

I Cried. He Answered

If you have your Bibles, I'd invite you to turn with me to Psalm 120. Bill Wymond and Josh Rieger and I regularly look for serviceable, metrical psalm versions that would work with tunes that are familiar to it if we don't have one in the Trinity Hymnal. And I believe — Josh, am I right? — that Bill Wymond wrote that text that we just sang tonight. We couldn't find one that really worked with the tunes that you know and so Dr. Wymond provided that. It's an excellent rendering of Psalm 120. We’re in the psalms of ascent now, those psalms that were sung by the pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem, and we don't know who wrote this psalm. Some of the psalms of ascent we know who wrote. For instance, if you've already turned to Psalm 120 just look a little bit ahead…

Father, into Your Hands I Commit My Spirit

The Lord's Day Morning November 20, 2011 “Father, Into Your Hands I Commit My Spirit” Luke 23:44-49 The Reverend Dr. J. Ligon Duncan III If you have your Bibles, I'd invite you to turn with me to Luke chapter 23 as we continue to make our way through the gospel of Luke. The last two times before this time we've been together we've been in a passage in which Jesus is on the cross. Luke gives us the first word of the cross in this passage and he gives us the last word of Jesus from the cross in the passage that we're studying. The very first word has to do with forgiveness, and therein Luke reminds us that Jesus is on the cross in order that our sins might be forgiven. That's illustrated, and we saw it last time we were together, in the story of the penitent thief…

How I Love Your Word, O Lord (2)

If you have your Bibles, I'd invite you to turn with me to Psalm 119. If you weren't here last Lord's Day evening we read all one hundred and seventy-six verses of Psalm 119. I was told by those who were clocking it that it took about twenty-four minutes to read the psalm out loud and then we just very briefly meditated on the overall content of that psalm. I also told the congregation then that I would be preparing a twenty-two week, and now it's twenty-three week, devotional…

Remember Me

The Lord's Day Morning November 13, 2011 “Remember Me” Luke 23:39-43 The Reverend Dr. J. Ligon Duncan III If you have your Bibles, I'd invite you to turn with me to Luke chapter 23 as we continue our way through the gospel of Luke together. I can remind you, a couple of weeks ago when we were last in the gospel, we were looking at the passage immediately prior to this in which Luke begins to describe the crucifixion. If you look especially at verse 34, Luke will give you the first…

How I Love Your Word, O Lord

If you have your Bibles, I would invite you to turn with me to Psalm 119. We've been working through the fifth book of the Psalms, the longest book or section of the Psalms, for a number of weeks now, and for a couple of months the ministers have been asking me, and other friends have been asking me, “What are you going to do with Psalm 119?” Some have wondered, are you going to do a twenty-two week series on Psalm 119 where we take each section of the psalm, structured around the Hebrew…

The Reason for Giving

The Lord's Day Morning November 6, 2011 “The Reasons for Giving” 1 Chronicles 29:9 The Reverend Dr. J. Ligon Duncan If you’d take your Bibles in hand and turn with me to 1 Chronicles 29, we have been working our way through the gospel of Luke and we're going to take a break this morning to look at the passage that our Deacon's Stewardship Committee has chosen to be the theme during our stewardship season. We do that because this is a teaching moment, not because if I preach a…

Lovingkindness. Forever

If you have your Bibles, I'd invite you to turn with me to Psalm 118, in many ways, the perfect compliment for what we studied together this morning in the gospel of Luke because the psalm that we're about to read is the last song that Jesus sang before He was crucified. Let's pray. Our Lord and our God, any time we're reading and hearing Your Word we are on holy ground. But it especially moves us when we are contemplating the things that surround our Lord's death on our…

Father, Forgive Them

The Lord's Day Morning October 30, 2011 “Father, Forgive Them” Luke 23:32-38 The Reverend Dr. J. Ligon Duncan III If you have your Bibles, I'd invite you to turn with me to Luke chapter 23 as we continue to work our way through Luke's gospel. We’ll be beginning in verse 32. As we do, this brief section describes the beginning of the crucifixion itself, and it's very interesting that as to the details of what Jesus underwent physically on the cross, Luke tells us this in…