Theological term
Regulative Principle
449 sermons · All terms
The Qualification for Elders
What does Scripture require of a man before he can lawfully serve as an elder in Christ's church? Working through 1 Timothy 3:1–7, this exposition first establishes five elements of a genuine call to the ministry — desire born of right motives, graces indicating genuine Christian experience, gifts indicating divine provision, providential opportunity, and recognition by the local church — before moving through the text's qualifications under five headings: personal holiness, domestic faithfulness, experience in the faith, testimony toward outsiders, and the one indispensable gift of being able to teach. Throughout, the point is pressed that these virtues are not merely a checklist for candidates but the standard of godliness every Christian man and woman ought to be pursuing.
Through Wilderness and War
Joshua 14 presents Caleb's request for Hebron not merely as an episode of tribal land distribution but as a portrait of faith persevering through forty-five years of wilderness and war. Caleb wholly followed the Lord because he lived by the Word of God's promises rooted in the redemptive act of the Exodus, drawing on the covenant means of grace — Word, circumcision, and Passover — as the spiritual engine of his endurance. The sermon argues that the Lord's Supper functions for New Covenant believers precisely as those old covenant means functioned for Caleb: it roots the mind in the great redemptive act of Christ crucified, feeds faith with the promises of God's faithfulness, and supplies staying power for the wilderness and war of the Christian life. Those who have not believed the gospel are exhorted not to take the Supper but to flee to the Savior and believe.
Women, the Word, and the Ministry
First Timothy 2:11–15 sets out Paul's prohibition against women teaching or exercising authority over men in the gathered church, grounding the rule not in first-century Ephesian culture but in the creation order of Genesis 2 and the fall of Genesis 3. The sermon works through three movements: Paul's exhortation that women receive the Word in submission, his double prohibition against women teaching men or holding authority over them, and his appeal to Adam's prior formation and Eve's deception as the theological rationale. Complementarian church governance is shown to be neither novel nor culturally conditioned but the normative, historically consistent pattern binding on every local church in every age. The closing treatment of verse 15 presents both the 'preservation in domestic faithfulness' reading and the 'messianic childbearing' interpretation, with the preacher siding with the latter.
Modesty and Good Works
Paul's instructions to women in 1 Timothy 2:9–10 are grounded in one controlling concern: corporate worship is about God, not the worshipper. This sermon works through the passage under three headings — the general principles of adornment, the specific applications Paul names (braided hair, gold, pearls, costly clothing), and the reorientation Paul commands toward good works. A biblical theology of jewelry demonstrates that Scripture nowhere condemns adornment as such; the prohibition targets ostentatiousness — the deliberate drawing of attention to oneself, whether through sexuality or the display of wealth — that distracts men from worship and provokes covetousness in sisters. The sermon closes by calling the Christian woman to pursue modesty, self-control, and good works as the true adornment of a gospel profession.
The Lord of the Sabbath, Part 2
Matthew 12:9–14 presents a second Sabbath conflict in which the Pharisees attempt to trap Jesus with the question of whether it is lawful to heal on the Sabbath, while themselves plotting murder on that same day. The sermon traces Jesus' fourfold response — a rhetorical question, a contrast between sheep and man, a drawn implication, and a commanding word of healing — demonstrating that the Pharisees' opposition is not ultimately about Sabbath details but about the authority of Christ, who is Lord of the Sabbath and therefore Lord over all. The healing of the man with the withered hand confirms Jesus' assertion in verse 8 and points forward to the cross, where the sin that hardens men's hearts against Christ is finally and fully addressed. Hearers are called to rest in Christ alone, who heals not only withered hands but withered souls, and to receive the Sabbath as a gift rather than a burden.
A Manifestation of Brotherly Love
Hebrews 13:3 commands believers to 'remember the prisoners as if chained with them' — not as a passive acknowledgement that suffering exists, but as an active, continual intercession on behalf of persecuted brothers and sisters. The sermon situates this command within the broader biblical pattern of enmity between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent (Genesis 3:15), arguing that persecution is the expected and normal experience of the godly throughout redemptive history. Three considerations structure the exposition: the duty to remember, the objects of remembrance (prisoners and the mistreated), and the reason for remembrance ('as if chained with them' — intense identification through shared membership in the body of Christ). Ten practical applications are drawn out, from intercessory prayer and letter-writing to praying for the conversion and restraint of persecutors, with the governing motive that Christ Himself is worth any suffering His people are called to endure.
Specific Directions for Corporate Prayer
What does it mean for men to lead in corporate prayer, and what moral conditions must accompany that leadership? Expounding 1 Timothy 2:8, this sermon establishes that Paul's expressed 'desire' carries apostolic authority binding upon all churches, that the word for 'men' (Greek andros) specifies males as those who are to lead in public worship, and that this complementarian order is grounded not in Ephesian circumstance but in the creation order of Genesis. The manner of that prayer — lifting holy hands, free from wrath and disputing — demands horizontal reconciliation before vertical supplication, so that unresolved sin and unreconciled relationships do not hinder the church's prayer to God.
The Priority of Prayer in the Church
Paul's command in 1 Timothy 2:1–2 to offer supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings for all men — including kings and those in authority — establishes corporate prayer as the first order of business in the life of the church. This sermon works through the four terms Paul employs, the scope of those for whom prayer is made (all classes of men, not every individual without exception), and the purpose clause that grounds the command: that the church may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence so as to pursue the Great Commission. The exhortation to pray for governing authorities is traced across the canon, from the Babylonian exile in Jeremiah 29 through Ezra 6 and Psalm 2, demonstrating that intercession for civil rulers is no novelty in redemptive history. Hearers are called to replace complaint about government with prayer for the salvation of those in authority, trusting that God sovereignly moves the hearts of kings.
2LCF Chapter 1 - Of the Holy Scriptures, Part 2
What does it mean to interpret Scripture rightly, and why does it matter? This Bible study exposition of 2 Timothy 3:16–17 (part 2) builds on the prior week's treatment of the doctrine of Scripture to address the discipline of hermeneutics — the principles, laws, and methods of biblical interpretation. Eight basic principles are set forth: Scripture's interpretation is a spiritual exercise requiring Spirit-dependent prayer; the text's meaning is objective, not reader-relative; the grammatical-historical method governs exegesis; context is paramount; Scripture is its own best interpreter; literary genre must be recognized; the relationship between the Old and New Testaments must be understood; and the interpreter is not alone but stands within the community of the church's gifted teachers across the centuries. The governing application is that every believer, not merely the ordained minister, must handle the Word of God accurately rather than twisting it to suit preferred meanings.
The Necessity for Biblical Preaching
God has appointed the preaching of the Word as His ordinary instrument for calling sinners to faith and nourishing the saints — a reality the apostles grounded in the nature of the gospel itself and the logic of Romans 10. This sermon works through three passages (Romans 10:14–17, 1 Corinthians 1:18–23, and 2 Timothy 4:1–8) to establish that preaching pleases God, confounds the natural man, and remains the irreplaceable mandate of the church regardless of cultural pressure. Drawing on confessional witnesses from the Didache and Westminster Larger Catechism to the Second Helvetic Confession, the sermon calls both preachers and hearers to recover a holy expectation of what God does through the faithful exposition of Scripture.
Joshua 2
Joshua 2 presents Rahab the harlot as an unexpected trophy of divine grace — a Canaanite prostitute whose confession of Yahweh's sovereignty stands as one of the most remarkable declarations of faith in the entire Hebrew Bible. Working through the chapter in three movements — the reconnaissance mission (vv. 1–7), Rahab's confession of God's sovereignty (vv. 8–14), and the covenant agreement with the spies (vv. 14–24) — the study shows that the ethical question of Rahab's lie is a distraction from the text's true center: her recognition of Yahweh as the one God over heaven and earth. The concluding application presses the Abrahamic promise that all nations will be blessed through Israel, and reminds hearers that the church is not a club for the respectable but a refuge for sinners redeemed by grace.
The Mission of the Twelve
The mission of the Twelve in Matthew 10:5–15 is not a universal mandate for all gospel ministry but a historically specific, geographically confined commission to the lost sheep of the house of Israel — the necessary first movement in a salvation-historical arc that culminates in the Great Commission of Matthew 28. The sermon works through four observations: the scope, nature, provision, and response to the mission, demonstrating that the sign gifts authenticated apostolic preaching rather than being ends in themselves. The sermon closes with a sober warning drawn from verse 15: greater gospel privilege demands greater accountability, and to hear the word faithfully preached and refuse it is a more grievous offense than the wickedness of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Prayer for Gospel Missions
Psalm 67 is a prayer for gospel missions structured around six petitions — three for the church and three for the world — and a two-fold promise of temporal and spiritual blessing. The church's mission to the nations flows necessarily from her own reception of divine mercy, blessing, and the manifest presence of God; a church that has not received these cannot rightly propagate them. The sermon argues that worship is the ultimate end of missions and evangelism, which are themselves the means by which God populates eternity with worshippers from every nation. Believers are exhorted to pray with this psalm regularly, interceding for the missionary enterprise and for the extension of Christ's kingdom to the uttermost parts of the earth.
Run with Endurance
Hebrews 12:1 calls believers to run with endurance the race set before them — not a sprint, but a lifelong, disciplined pursuit of Christ through every obstacle and trial. This Bible study exposition works through the duty stated in verse 1, the two obstacles to lay aside (encumbering weights and ensnaring sin), the nature of Christian endurance as distinct from mere stoic grit, and the kindness God shows in repeatedly exhorting his people rather than cutting them off. The central incentive examined is the great cloud of witnesses from Hebrews 11, whose collective testimony is not that they are cheering from the stands but that God is faithful — a truth that grounds and motivates the runner's perseverance.
Thy Kingdom Come
The second petition of the Lord's Prayer — 'Thy kingdom come' — presses the believer to understand what the kingdom of God actually is before praying for it with any intelligence. This sermon traces three biblical dimensions of the kingdom: God's universal providential reign over all things, the already-present kingdom of grace inaugurated at Christ's first coming, and the not-yet consummated kingdom of glory awaiting his return. With that theological foundation laid, the sermon moves through concrete, structured applications for how the individual believer, the local church, and the wider world ought to be brought before God under this single petition.
Wage the Good Warfare
Paul's charge to Timothy in 1 Timothy 1:18–20 — to wage the good warfare — is the ground for a sustained argument that gospel ministry requires both the positive exposition of truth and the courageous refutation of error. The sermon works through the basis of that charge (prophetic appointment), its necessary instruments (faith and a good conscience), and the catastrophic consequences of rejecting those instruments, illustrated by the named cases of Hymenaeus and Alexander. Church discipline, including excommunication into the realm of Satan, is presented not merely as punitive but as remedial — aimed at the repentance and restoration of the erring sinner. Every Christian, not only ordained ministers, is called to maintain fidelity to Christ and his gospel as soldiers and sailors in a genuine spiritual combat.
Deuteronomy 34
Deuteronomy 34, the final chapter of the Torah, records the death of Moses and the transfer of leadership to Joshua, framing both events within the larger structure of covenantal succession. The chapter's central theological weight falls on the faithfulness of the covenant Lord, who fulfils to the letter every promise made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob regarding the land — a faithfulness Moses witnesses from the summit of Pisgah. Moses' death and anonymous burial serve as an emblem of the law's inability to bring God's people into the heavenly inheritance, a typological thread that runs forward to Joshua (whose name is the Hebrew form of 'Jesus') and ultimately to the Mediator of the new covenant, whose own 'exodus' Moses would discuss face to face on the Mount of Transfiguration. The sermon closes with a sustained application on the means of grace, arguing that corporate worship ordered by God's own prescription — word, prayer, and sacraments — is the appointed means by which God's people gain their clearest foretastes of the heavenly Canaan.
A Ruler's Daughter and an Afflicted Woman
Matthew 9:18–26 presents two intertwined miracles — the raising of Jairus's daughter and the healing of a chronically afflicted woman — as Matthew's climactic demonstration of Christ's authority over death and disease. The passage exposes the nature of saving faith: not its strength or emotional intensity, but its object, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is both willing and omnipotent to save. Whether the petitioner is a prominent synagogue ruler or a marginalized, impoverished woman, Christ receives all who come to him in faith, regardless of social station. The sermon closes with a call to venture on Christ in faith, and a pastoral plea for parents to pray that their children would be brought to saving knowledge of him in their youth.
Deuteronomy 32
Deuteronomy 32, the Song of Moses, functions not as an emotional appendix to the covenantal legislation but as a doctrinal witness designed to penetrate Israel's heart and promote fidelity to Yahweh. The chapter moves through four movements — the creation of Israel as a chosen people, Israel's apostasy through ingratitude and idolatry, the covenantal judgment God brings through Assyria and Babylon, and the ultimate salvation and vindication of God's people — all within the framework of the Mosaic covenant's blessing-and-curse structure. Idolatry, rooted in the rejection of God and the embrace of His gifts over the Giver, is shown to be the defining sin of the nation, and its antidote is robust theology proper. The song closes with Gentile inclusion in covenant blessing, which Paul explicitly cites in Romans 15 as fulfilled in the new covenant era.
The Goodness of God's Law
Paul's claim in 1 Timothy 1:8 that 'the law is good if one uses it lawfully' confronts two recurring errors in the church: legalism, which perverts the law into a ladder of merit before God, and antinomianism, which banishes the law from the Christian life altogether. This sermon works through verses 8–11 to establish three things: the apostolic affirmation that the law is intrinsically good, the necessary qualification that it must be used lawfully, and Paul's explanation of its civil use — the restraint of outward wickedness — illustrated by a rehearsal of the Decalogue's second table. The threefold use of the law (civil, pedagogical, normative) is set within the framework of covenant theology and justification by faith alone, which together guard the church from both errors, and the sermon closes by pressing the pedagogical use upon the unconverted: look to Sinai, see your guilt, and flee to Christ alone.
Deuteronomy 27
Deuteronomy 27 marks the transition from the stipulation section of Israel's covenantal constitution to the sanctions section, where blessings and curses are attached to covenant faithfulness or breach. This exposition works through the future covenant renewal ceremony at Mounts Ebal and Gerizim (vv. 1–10) and the twelve maledictory curses pronounced upon covenant-breakers (vv. 11–26), showing that the curses addressed both external conduct and the secret intentions of the heart. The self-maledictory 'amen' sworn by Israel on Ebal anticipates the curse Christ bore as covenant head and mediator, whose personal, entire, exact, and perpetual obedience fulfills what no Israelite could render. The law's function, then, is to expose human sinfulness and drive the covenant people outside themselves to the Redeemer.
A Call to the Ministry
What qualifies a man for gospel ministry, and how does the local church bear responsibility for ensuring its pulpits are filled with such men? Expounding 1 Timothy 3:1–7, this sermon argues that a biblical call to the ministry involves five distinguishable elements: desire born of right motives, graces indicating genuine Christian experience, gifts indicating divine provision, opportunity indicating providential opening, and recognition by the local church. The qualifications Paul sets forth — personal holiness, domestic faithfulness, maturity in the faith, and a good testimony among outsiders — are not optional preferences but the objective standard by which the church must evaluate candidates, so that the subjective sense of inward call is always tested and regulated by the community of God's people.
A Brief Survey of Covenant Theology, Part 1
What is a divine covenant, and why does 'covenant theology' accurately describe the Bible's own architecture? This lecture — the first in a three-part survey — defines divine covenants as relational arrangements sovereignly initiated by God for man's benefit, with ways and means established by God alone to obtain the designated blessings. Drawing on Nehemiah Cox, 2 Samuel 7, Exodus 19, and Hebrews 10, the speaker demonstrates that both Testaments are covenantally structured documents: the Old Testament is the covenantal record for old covenant Israel, and the New Testament is the covenantal record for the new covenant church, both centering on Christ in his sufferings and glory. The lecture concludes that covenant theology is not an alien grid imposed on Scripture but the organic, Christocentric shape of biblical revelation itself, best interpreted by allowing the New Testament to illuminate the Old.
Deuteronomy 23
Deuteronomy 23 addresses the holiness of the covenant community through laws governing exclusion from the assembly of the Lord, ritual cleanliness in the military camp, and miscellaneous regulations for community life. The chapter's detailed and seemingly mundane stipulations — covering the castrated, the illegitimate, hostile ethnic groups, bodily waste, escaped slaves, cult prostitution, usury, vows, and gleaning rights — all flow from one unifying concern: Israel was a sanctified, set-apart people who were to reflect the character of the God who dwelt in their midst. These Old Covenant regulations, grounded in God's love for his covenant community, point toward the New Covenant expansion in which eunuchs, Gentiles, and all nations are called without restriction to enter the assembly of the Lord through the proclamation of the gospel.
Deuteronomy 22
Deuteronomy 22 presents two categories of miscellaneous Mosaic legislation: covenant community obligations (verses 1–12) and laws governing the integrity of marriage and sexual relationships (verses 13–30). The exposition examines each of the six laws in both categories, demonstrating that the principles underlying them — mutual care within the covenant community, God-ordained gender distinctions, sexual purity, and the protection of the innocent — remain directly applicable in the new covenant era. Sin is the constant in every generation, and God's law, rightly understood, punishes the guilty and protects the innocent, pointing his people toward holiness and away from the patterns of the surrounding nations.
The Two Trees
Matthew 7:15–20 records Christ's warning against false prophets who enter the community of disciples disguised as sheep while remaining ravenous wolves within. The sermon works through two broad sections: the nature of false prophets (their deception, intention, and manifestation) and the parable of the two trees, arguing that the 'fruit' by which false prophets are known is primarily their doctrine rather than their outward conduct. Believers are not left helpless — Christ assumes his people, equipped with Scripture and the Spirit, are able to identify and resist false teachers whose ultimate end, along with those who follow them, is eternal destruction.
The Cross of Christ in the Book of Acts, Part 2
The cross of Christ is not one truth among many in the book of Acts but the central content of apostolic proclamation, divinely purposed, promised, and accomplished before being heralded to the nations. This sermon completes a two-part topical study by examining two final aspects: divine proclamation, the reality that God sends his own heralds to declare a message of divine origin, and divine proficiency, the certainty that the cross efficiently accomplishes the salvation of every sinner appointed to eternal life. The governing text is Acts 13:26–49, where Paul's sermon at Pisidian Antioch displays both the content and the electing power of gospel preaching. Hearers are called to glory in the cross as the wisdom and power of God and to observe the Lord's Supper as a living symbol of that cross.
Only Christ Satisfies
Isaiah 55:4–5 presents Christ as witness, leader, and commander to the peoples — the sufficient Savior in whom every need of the soul is met. This sermon expounds the free offer of the gospel in Isaiah 55:1–3, showing that the unrestricted call to all thirsting sinners is the means by which God effectually gathers his elect from every nation through Christ's sovereign work. Drawing on the covenant of redemption, the sermon traces Christ's witness from the Old Testament prophets through his incarnation, resurrection, and present reign at the Father's right hand. Hearers are called to cast off self-sufficiency, submit to Christ's authority over the church in worship and practice, and live in contented obedience as those whom he will never leave nor forsake.
Thanksgiving for the Mercy of God
Psalm 103 calls every redeemed soul to deliberate, whole-hearted praise — not as a passive emotion but as a disciplined act of self-address rooted in theological memory. The sermon works through three movements: the reminder to bless God (vv. 1–2), the reasons to bless God both individually and corporately (vv. 3–18), and the universal summons extending that call to angels and all creation (vv. 19–22). Forgiveness of all iniquities stands at the head of the list of benefits, and every temporal and spiritual blessing flows from a God whose mercy is not transient like the grass of the field but everlasting to everlasting. The psalm, rightly applied in the new-covenant believer's life, keeps one near the cross, corrects the tendency toward practical atheism, and transforms ingratitude into genuine thanksgiving.
Deuteronomy 18
Deuteronomy 18 addresses two offices of spiritual leadership in Israel — the priests and the prophets — and sets them against the backdrop of the occultic practices of the Canaanites. The provision for Levites and priests (vv. 1–8) establishes that God, through the faithfulness of his covenant people, is the material sustainer of those devoted to sacred service. The prohibition against divination, sorcery, and necromancy (vv. 9–14) makes plain that Israel was to seek God's word through appointed means, not pagan dark arts. The chapter reaches its pinnacle in the promise of a prophet like Moses (vv. 15–22), which finds its ultimate antitype in the Lord Jesus Christ as prophet to the church.