Seventeen82

  For over 40 years, the ARP denomination has had the privilege to serve and minister to the Appalachian states of Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky. The Appalachia mission trip has been a staple part of summer activities for students and adults. For a week in July, churches from across the denomination travel up to minister to small churches in the tri-state area by holding vacation bible schools. The impact of the Appalachia mission trip is lasting not only for the ARP churches who serve but also for the children from the area who attend. Our denomination is serving in great ways through this service of Appalachia.     Appalachia began back in 1981 as the  “ Kentucky Mission Trip ” . Presbyterian youth director Johnny Price from Columbia, SC had the vision to take a team of high school students from Columbia to do a bible study for children in the Cumberland Gap area of Kentucky. He found Bill Hazelwood, a Southern Baptist pastor in the Cumberland Gap area to collaborate with him and

  Over the past several months I’ve been somewhat slowly going through the Book of Deuteronomy in my private devotions. In many ways it is my favorite book in the whole Bible. From beginning to end it is a testimony to the love of God for His covenant people as well as a display of His wisdom. What is basically happening in that portion of Holy Scripture is you have Moses preaching to the Israelites on the plains of Moab to prepare them to go into the promised land. They need to know why they are at the shores of the Jordan and how they are to order their society after the conquest. This generation didn’t grow up in Egypt. They’ve been born since the Red Sea and have experienced so much about the ways of the LORD, but they need to understand more deeply about why God has done things in the manner that He has and also what He expects of them in the future. Remedial training is helpful for all kinds of folks, but most especially for those who have not been through it before. Most of

    “ What do you want to be when you grow up?”   “What college are you planning on going to, and what will you study?”   “What career do you plan on pursuing?”   “Do you plan on getting married?”   “Who do you plan on marr y ing and when?”   If your experience has been anything like mine,   you  have   most likely  been   asked   the se  sorts of questions  at some point in your life .  Especially in high school and college, t hese questions seem to be at the  fore front of everyone’s minds.  While  an education ,  a career , and marriage  are  certainly important  things ,  there  is  a  far  more important question  that ought to be at the forefront of our mind : “What is the chief end of man?”   As many of yo u  already know , this  is the first  question  in   the  Westminster Shorter  Catechism , and its  answer is this: “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever. ”  It is this truth  concerning man’s chief end, or man’s primary purpose,  that ought   to  dictat

  There  is a point  in Wendell Berry’s book  The Memory of Old Jack  where one of the characters, Andy Catlett, is leaving for college one afternoon in 1952. In a matter of moments ,  Andy finishes harvesting a row of tobacco, say s  goodbye to the men who raised him in those fields  with  seemingly  as few words as possible , and walks towards his home .   The narrator tells us :  He left the field and from some distance looked back, and there they were, going on, intent upon their work as before, and the ripe tobacco and the evening light surrounded them with a glow that would stay in his mind, he thought, forever. W ho  he  is he owes to them.  It is time for him to move on  even as they continue to do what they have always done .  Life goes on.  Andy next finds himself in the  farmhouse  kitchen ,  the house of his upbringing ,  with his grandmother Margaret having packed all his essentials for the road, readying her final instructions for him before he heads out of town .  She sa

  To start out today I am going to make you read all of this: “That all Kings and Princes at their coronation, and reception of their princely authority, shall make their faithful promise by their solemn oath, in the presence of the eternal God, that, enduring the whole time of their lives, they shall serve the same eternal God, to the uttermost of their power, according as he hath required in His most holy Word, contained in the Old and New Testament; and according to the same Word shall maintain the true religion of Christ Jesus, the preaching of His holy Word, the due and right ministration of the sacraments now received and preached within this realm, (according to the Confession of Faith immediately preceding) and shall abolish and [withstand] all false religion contrary to the same; and shall rule the people committed to their charge, according to the will and command of God revealed in His foresaid Word, and according to the laudable laws and constitutions received in this rea

  ​ It was the winter of 1986 when I first laid eyes on my future wife. Now, when I first spotted this radiant beauty, great confusion followed. For it was like I was seeing double, because I was seeing double. My wife is an identical twin. A little counsel for any young fella considering dating a twin: make sure you know which twin you want to go out with before asking one of them out. Otherwise, you might end up asking both of them out, as I did. Trust me, your beautiful bride will never let you forget the “mistake” of going out with her twin sister, as long as you both shall live. Well, all that took place in 1987, the same year that lovely girl became my bride, the wife of my youth. Thirty-five years later, I can affirm that a man finds a good thing when he finds a wife and has obtained favor from the Lord. I can likewise affirm the wisdom of Proverbs 5:18-19: “Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth, a lovely deer, a graceful doe. Let her breasts fill y

In his book  The Gospel-Driven Life , Michael Horton makes this vivid observation: “ Picking up on a phrase from Augustine, the Protestant Reformers said that as fallen sinners we are all  ‘ curved in on ourselves. ’  Born with a severe case of spiritual scoliosis, our spines are twisted so that all we can see are our own immediate felt needs, desires, wants, and momentary gratifications. But the gospel makes us stand erect, looking up to God in faith and out to the world and our neighbors in love and service. Not every piece of news can do that, but the gospel can. ” But do we really believe this? Perhaps the Reformers, et al, have made too much of this. Perhaps we are  a little  fallen , like wobbly toddlers , but not  that  fallen. Perhaps we have  just  enough life to pick ourselves up by our spiritual bootstraps and blaze our own spiritual trail  unto salvation. But then, on the other hand, the Apostle Paul makes the following statements: “ And you were dead in your trespasses and