This coming Sunday, September 13, we will begin a new Sunday School class on the Protestant Reformation. I look forward to walking through this period of church history in the months ahead. But before we get there, it’s good to consider why the study of church history is important for the Christian.1. Church history bears witness to the faithfulness of Christ. Christ has declared that he will buil...

The Lord’s Service. The Lord’s Table. The Lord’s Praise. And the Lord’s Presence.  At the beginning of this year, we took eight weeks to look at all that we do when we gather on Sunday. If you recall, we answered a series of questions, which can be found in this sermon series. Short of listening to all of those sermons, however, here they are as a short catechism.Q.Where do we gather on the Lord’s...

In her 1947 essay, “The Lost Tools of Learning,” Dorothy Sayers (1893–1957), an English writer and Christian thinker, argued that students learn best when they proceed from grammar, to dialectic (or logic), to rhetoric. These three disciplines, known as the trivium, are necessary, according to Sayers, before pupils can go on to the quadrivium, which consists of arithmetic, geometry, music, astrono...

On Sunday, we will look at James 3 in the Sunday Sermon. And in the first verse, we find these sobering words: “Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.” Now, hold on to that verse and compare it to the ministry training event coming next Sunday (August 23)—an open invitation for all members at OBC who are teaching ...