Blog: February 2017

This week was our final week in the Old Testament as we looked at the Book of Malachi. After many years living as prisoners in Babylon, God’s people had returned to Judah. They had worked hard and overcome opposition to rebuild the temple and the walls around Jerusalem. Surely God would restore them … finally! But nothing happened. As they waited, they faced drought and economic uncertainty. God’s people probably didn’t feel like God had blessed them at all. “It is useless to serve God,” they said. “What have we gained by keeping His ...

The old table prayer strikes a vital balance:  “God is great and God is good…”  A careful, wise reading of Scripture upholds this theological equilibrium.  Giving too much attention to God’s love and mercy leaves his holiness and majesty at the margins; and too much emphasis on God’s glory and power sidelines his heart of compassion and grace. In our Prayer Gathering this week we saw how Psalms 111 and 113 express this crucial theological balance.  We prayed in response to God’s Word, exalting the Lord in his transcendent splendor and ...

Ezra traveled to Jerusalem with a purpose. God’s people had spent 70 years in exile, and they needed to be reminded how to live. As a scribe, Ezra was an expert on the law of Moses, and he had “determined in his heart to study the law of the Lord, obey it, and teach its statutes and ordinances in Israel” (Ezra 7:10).  Under Nehemiah’s leadership, the people had rebuilt Jerusalem’s walls. They gathered together at the Water Gate to hear the law of Moses. Men, women, and children—anyone who could understand—came to listen to the reading of ...

After finishing my first semester at Gordon-Conwell Seminary near Boston in December 1981, I hit the road for Christmas vacation in Minnesota, and then a few weeks later I drove back east.  Two other Minnesotans joined me on this road trip—24 hours driving each way. We left Boston late one day and drove through a snowy night.  When daylight struck some­where in central Pennsylvania, we saw a great many cars and trucks strewn about the embankments and ditches of I-80, including a lot of jack-knifed tractor-trailers.  We were stunned—the ...

City walls and gates were very important in Bible times. Walls were built to be several feet thick. They protected a city from its enemies and provided a sense of safety and security. Gates were the center of city life, the meeting place for commercial and social transactions. Without these structures, the surviving remnant of God’s people struggled and was vulnerable to attack. Nehemiah traveled from Persia to Jerusalem to lead the effort in rebuilding Jerusalem’s walls. Nehemiah’s leadership was effective. Nehemiah 3 describes all the ...

Waiting.  Such a shared human experience.  Some waiting is a mild irritation – waiting for a parking space.  Waiting for your number to be called at the DMV center.  But some waiting tears at your soul.  Struggling with infertility and waiting for a baby.  Longing to be married and waiting for a spouse.  A severed relationship with a loved one and waiting for reconciliation.  Why is waiting so agonizing?  As I’ve waited these past months for renewed energy, I have found waiting difficult because it exposes my lack of control.  Control.  Oh ...

The Corinthian church had a problem with worldliness.  Their spiritual immaturity kept them from seeing (or admitting) how they’d imported into the church various secular, sinful values prevalent in society.  Pride and a resulting divisive spirit were especially damaging to the health of the Corinthians’ Christian fellowship 2,000 years ago. What about the church today?  Last Sunday I mentioned several values that are prominent in our 21st century Western society.  Do we allow these worldly attitudes in the door at Goshen?  Consider: ...

Hello there, blog reader!  We're happy to have you here with us in our little corner of the world.  I am known around Goshen Baptist Church as the guy who plays the jazzy stuff on the piano while the congregation is trying to sing.  I have to behave myself, because many of the musical ideas I have, while interesting to me, may be wholly inappropriate if executed!  I've learned that not everything I play has to be personalized, although, in all honesty, I am most artistically satisfied when I can "do my own thing" with a song.  In this regard, ...

This week and the next two weeks, we are studying the story of Nehemiah and Ezra. Nehemiah was a Jew living in Persia. He served as the king’s cupbearer, a position of great trust; the cupbearer made sure no one poisoned the king’s drink. Sometimes the cupbearer even tasted some of the drink himself to ensure it was safe. When the Persian Empire conquered the Babylonians, King Cyrus allowed God’s people to return to Judah. Two or three million Jews had originally been deported, but only a remnant—50,000 people—returned. They set up their ...

A bedrock conviction we have here at GBC is that the Bible is God’s inspired, truthful, authoritative, and ever-relevant word.  Scripture shows us what’s ultimately real and important in the universe—like the glory of God, humanity’s treason against him, the stunning offer of amnesty to rebels who put their trust in Christ, and the promise of eternal joy in God’s presence for all who turn to him. So when we see the Bible being twisted and manipulated to comply with man-centered agendas, we object!  Or at least we ought to object.  Trouble ...

Goshen Baptist Church (GBC): Nate, thanks for being our first Goshen staff interview! Tell us about your event coming up. Nate: It’s a fundraiser for a cochlear implant that I want to do.  I’ve been looking into it for a long time and finally decided to go through with it after meeting my first nephew. GBC: Tell us about your nephew. NATE: Uh.  I don’t know.  Cutest thing I’ve ever met?  Does that suffice? GBC: Absolutely! How old is he? NATE: Three or four months now.  He’s really, really cute. GBC: Tell us about why you have the ...