Our fathers had much to say about stillness, and by stillness they meant the absence of motion or the absence of noise or both. They felt that they must be still for at least a part of the day, or that day would be wasted. God can be known in the tumult of the world… Continue Reading
The singing of psalms has all but disappeared from many congregations, unless you count the “As the Deer” chorus as a singing of a psalm. (Lifting the first line from a psalm and adding words about your desire to eventually worship generally doesn’t count.) One cannot help feeling that many congregations treat their hymnal as… Continue Reading
The section on prayer in John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion is surely one of the most beloved passages of that influential work. Therein, Calvin addresses, among other matters, the importance of reverence in corporate prayer. For Calvin, an essential mark of reverence in corporate prayer is attentiveness. He says, Whoever engaged in prayer… Continue Reading
How important is it that we worship God and him alone? Deuteronomy 13:6-11 is one of those passages that jars our modern sensibilities as a stark reminder that God will not be trifled with: [6] “If your brother, the son of your mother, or your son or your daughter or the wife you embrace or… Continue Reading