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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…

Prepare the Passover

The Lord's Day Morning August 7, 2011 “Prepare the Passover” Luke 22:1-13 The Reverend Dr. J. Ligon Duncan III If you have your Bibles, I'd invite you to turn with me to Luke chapter 22. We have reached the crescendo of the gospel of Luke. From Luke 22 to the end of this book, we will consider the sufferings and death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. And in the material that Luke gives us, we will enter into the very holy of holies, the heart of the Christian faith. And in the passage before us today in Luke 22:1-13, we find ourselves on Thursday, the fourteenth of Nisan, the Thursday of the Passion Week, and it's the day of the preparation for the Passover lamb. And Jesus is giving Peter and John instructions on getting the Passover meal itself and all of its…

My Words Will Not Pass Away

The Lord's Day Morning July 24, 2011 “My Words Will Not Pass Away” Luke 21:25-38 The Reverend Dr. J. Ligon Duncan III If you have your Bibles, I'd invite you to turn with me to Luke chapter 21 as we continue to make our way through the gospel of Luke together. We’re going to be looking at verses 25 to the end of the chapter together today, and continuing on a passage in which Jesus has been addressing His disciples about events that are both near and far away. In this same passage, Jesus prepares His disciples for the tribulations and trials and persecutions that they are going to experience in the days leading up to and then surrounding the fall of Jerusalem. He's speaking about forty years ahead of those events. Forty years after Jesus speaks these words in AD 70,…

Hated By All On Account of My Name

The Lord's Day Morning July 17, 2011 “Hated By All On Account of My Name” Luke 21:5-24 The Reverend Dr. J. Ligon Duncan III If you have your Bibles, I'd invite you to turn with me to the gospel of Luke. We’re in the twenty-first chapter as we continue our way through this gospel together, and we've come to a section in Luke in which Luke records Jesus’ teaching to His disciples about the end, about the future, about what is to come. It's provoked by a conversation that Jesus overhears, to which He makes a comment, which then causes the disciples to ask Him a question that gets Him into the issue of the future. But I want to make one simple observation before we begin to read the passage and that's this — whenever the Bible begins to talk about prophecy,…

Don’t Fake Religion

The Lord's Day Morning July 10, 2011 “Don't Fake Religion” Luke 20:45 – Luke 21:4 The Reverend Dr. J. Ligon Duncan III If you have your Bibles, I'd invite you to turn with me to Luke chapter 20 as we continue our way together through the gospel of Luke. Today, we come to the end of Luke 20 and verse 45 and we’ll read through to Luke 21 verse 4. You’ll see why in a moment. The last time we were together in Luke we saw Jesus indicting the theology of the scribes and the…

What Jesus Believed About the Resurrection

The Lord's Day Morning July 3, 2011 “What Jesus Believed About the Resurrection” Luke 20:27-44 The Reverend Dr. J. Ligon Duncan III If you have your Bibles, I'd invite you to turn with me to Luke chapter 20. We’ll be looking at verses 27 to 44 today as we continue our way through the gospel of Luke. Let me remind you that the passage that we're going to read today is the third time in Luke 20 where Jesus’ authority and teaching is challenged by the scribes and the Sadducees…

O God, Speak Up!

If you have your Bibles, I'd invite you to turn with me to Psalm 109. Psalm 109 is a hard psalm. It is the last of the imprecatory psalms. That is, it is a psalm of imprecation of curse. It calls down God's curse on the wicked. And it is well that it is the last of the imprecatory psalms because it is perhaps the strongest and certainly the most sustained of the songs of curse. There are something like twenty-four curses called down in verses 6 to 20 in the middle section of the psalm in…

Rendering to Caesar and God

The Lord's Day Morning June 26, 2011 “Rendering to Caesar and God” Luke 20:19-26 The Reverend Dr. J. Ligon Duncan III If you have your Bibles, I'd invite you to turn with me to Luke chapter 20 as we continue our way through the gospel of Luke together. The last time we were together we looked at the parable of the wicked tenants. The event that we're studying today happens on Tuesday or Wednesday perhaps, of the final week of Jesus’ earthly ministry before His crucifixion on…

Determined to Worship

If you have your Bibles, I'd invite you to turn with me to Psalm 108 as we continue our way through the fifth book of the Psalms together. And the last time we were together, we were at Psalm 107 and so we continue tonight in the next psalm. This psalm, as some of you may know, is put together from two other psalms in the Psalter. It has parts of Psalm 57, verses 7 to 11 in it, and it has parts of Psalm 60, verses 5 to 12 in it. And David has put it together. Those previous psalms, perhaps…

Rejection

The Lord's Day Morning June 19, 2011 “Rejection” Luke 20:9-18 The Reverend Dr. J. Ligon Duncan III If you have your Bibles, I'd invite you to turn with me to Luke chapter 20 as we continue our way through the gospel of Luke together. Now let's look at Luke 20, verses 9 to 18. And remember, we're in the final week of Jesus’ life. This parable is told in each of the three synoptic gospels — Matthew, Mark, and Luke all record this parable. Not all of the parables that occur…