From the Pastor's Study

Genesis 3

God’s first recorded words to fallen man were not words of wrath but of searching: “Where are you?” He knew where Adam was. The question was for Adam’s sake. And it is still being asked of every sinner today.

Exodus 33:18–23

Moses asked to see God’s glory and God answered with goodness. That word has gone thin in our mouths, but in the cleft of the Rock it is the glory itself, sovereign and free, looking back at us in the face of Christ.

Job 42:2

You wake at three in the morning and hit a wall: there is nothing more you can do. But Someone is still working. Job lost everything, then confessed that God can do all things and no purpose of His can be thwarted. That truth changes how we trust.

Malachi 3:6

Israel had quietly decided that the God of Sinai had mellowed. Yahweh answers them with His own name. Because He cannot change, His justice will not soften and His covenant will not fail, and that is the only reason any of us are still standing.

Isaiah 6:1–8

Only one attribute of God is ever lifted to the third degree. The seraphim do not stumble over the word. They place the holiness of God at a height nothing else in the universe touches. Isaiah 6 shows what happens when a sinful man sees it.

Jeremiah 23:16–32

God fills heaven and earth: too near for the sinner to hide, too faithful for the saint to fear. Jeremiah 23 dismantles every false theology built on the assumption that anything stays hidden from Him.

Isaiah 46:9–11

God does not merely foresee the future. He purposes it and performs it. Isaiah 46:9–11 shows us a God who named a pagan king 150 years before he was born, and was not wrong by a single syllable.

Exodus 34:6–7

God's longsuffering is not weakness. It is sovereign restraint aimed at a holy purpose. He bears long because He is gathering His people, and every day of patience is the runway on which the gospel runs.

2 Corinthians 8:5

The Macedonians first gave themselves to the Lord, then to His church. The order matters, and so does what comes after. A pastoral look at what New Testament church membership actually involves.

Job 1:20–22

If worship required ideal circumstances, church history would look a lot different. A Lord’s Day reflection on Job, the church through the ages, and what it means when we wait to praise.

Romans 16:3–5

God has never needed a building to build His church. A look at Baptist history and an encouragement for those who find themselves meeting in a home.

Hebrews 10:25

Some join the church but are rarely seen. Scripture compares the church to a body, and a body cannot function with absent parts. Hebrews 10:25 warns us not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together.

1 Timothy 2:11–14

Some churches get around their Statement of Faith by putting women in leadership and refusing to call them pastors. She calls her sermon a Bible study. The label is a dodge. Scripture speaks to the woman directly.

Ephesians 4:4–6

Getting wet is not the same as being baptized. Pastor Green walks through the three elements every scriptural baptism must have: proper authority, proper candidate, and proper mode.

Matthew 16:18–19

Jesus gave the keys of the kingdom to His church. When a disciplined offender seizes those keys, it would not be freedom. It would be rebellion against Christ, and heaven would not forget.

Acts 19:1–8

Many who came before us did what Paul did, and they were called Anabaptists by their enemies. He would have said: I simply baptized once. Whatever happened before was not true baptism. A study in scriptural authority and the ordinance of baptism.

Mark 14:22–26

The Lord’s Supper is Christ’s table, set by His authority and governed by His word. Pastor Green walks through the five biblical qualifications that determine who may rightly come to it.

Acts 11:1–18

There is a difference between holding the old Baptist landmarks and weaponizing them. Pastor Green examines how a proud, exclusionary Landmarkism betrays the very spirit it claims to defend.

3 John 9–10; Matthew 16:18–19

A church can be wrong on baptism, the Lord’s Supper, and the gospel. She can also be wrong on discipline. What happens when a member is excluded for unscriptural reasons?

Luke 22:36

No Baptist signed the Declaration of Independence, but thousands of Baptists took up arms and bled for the cause. A look at the record, and a pastor’s honest word at America’s 250th birthday.

Ephesians 3:20–21

A 30th anniversary sermon on Paul’s doxology. The God who exceeds our asking, the church where His glory shines, and the generations who carry it forward.

John 6:44

A cordial and honest answer to a common question. If you mean the doctrines of grace, yes. If you mean the whole system, no. The doctrines we share with Reformed Baptists and the distinctives that set us apart.

Numbers 33:50–56

God told Israel to destroy the images in the land. He still demands holiness from His people today. A plain pastoral word on a sin the pulpit has been too quiet about, with a real way of escape in Christ.

1 Samuel 7:12

A 30th anniversary reflection on Samuel’s stone at Mizpah. Look back at the help of God, look honest at those who did not finish, and look ahead and run to win.

Psalm 92:12–14

The pines were scorched black, the underbrush gone, the ground gray with ash. And there in the middle of it, the palmettos were already putting out fresh fronds. What survives a fire is what the fire could not reach.

John 3:5–8

A reflection on George Whitefield, the First Great Awakening, and the awakening we still need today, prompted by the Sight & Sound film A Great Awakening.

Acts 17:11  |  Galatians 5:19–26

A personal reflection on how a period of King James Onlyism gave way to a more biblical view of Bible translations.

2 Timothy 3:14–17

Pastor Green explains why he preaches from the Legacy Standard Bible. From the recovery of God's covenant name Yahweh to its literal word-for-word translation philosophy, the LSB brings the reader closer to the original text than any other modern English translation.

Genesis 15:1–21

Abram slept. Yahweh walked alone. The covenant was cut and Abram had nothing to do with keeping it. The gospel is hidden in plain sight in the book of Genesis, and the reason a believer can stand secure today is the same reason Abram could.

Genesis 2:4

Yahweh is God’s personal covenant name, and it appears over 6,800 times in your Old Testament. What does that name mean, why was it obscured in translation, and where does it ultimately lead? Straight to Jesus.

Genesis 1:1–2:3

Six days of creation, one day of rest, and the only eyewitness account of the beginning of everything. A verse-by-verse study of what the Bible actually says about where the world came from.

Psalm 8

What is man, that the God who made the stars would remember him? Psalm 8 asks the question that still staggers, and the answer is a Person.

Psalm 7

When the righteous are slandered and pursued, God is the refuge, the Judge, and the vindicator. A psalm for people who have been lied about, and for a church that has been wronged.

Psalm 6:1–10

Psalm 6 is what real prayer sounds like when real life is hard. God does not ask us to pretend. He asks us to pray. And He hears.

Psalm 5:1–12

Psalm 5 models how a believer draws near to a holy God: not on the basis of personal worthiness, but on the abundance of God’s lovingkindness. Come boldly, come humbly, come honestly, come joyfully.

Mark 11:15–19

Christ’s zeal for His Father’s house overturned the tables of the moneychangers and pointed straight to the cross. A study of Mark 11.

Mark 8:10–21

Jesus warned His disciples to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees. That leaven is hypocrisy and self-righteous arrogance, and it is still rising in churches today.

Mark 1:16–20

The church began when ordinary men dropped everything to follow Christ, and He is still calling people to do the same. A study of the charter members of the church, the call to be fishers of men, and what it costs to follow.

Luke 13:1–5

Two recent tragedies. One sober command, repeated twice. Jesus answers a question about other people’s deaths by pressing every hearer to consider his own.

Luke 10:25–37

The law demands that we love our neighbors perfectly, completely, and all the time. Not one of us has done that. But there is One who did, and the Good Samaritan is a picture of Him.

John 1:35–51

Seven titles. One Person. In seventeen verses the men who met Jesus call Him the Lamb of God, the Messiah, the Son of God, and every one of them ended up saying the same thing: come and see for yourself.

John 4:1–45

Because God is spirit, only those who worship Him from the inside out, in spirit and in truth, worship Him at all. The mountain doesn’t matter. The building doesn’t matter. What matters is whether the God you say you worship has actually gotten into your heart.

Acts 20:28–31

Paul warned the Ephesian elders about wolves coming in among the flock. The phrase "wolves in sheep's clothing" has a sharper meaning than we usually give it, and the way we throw it around says something about us.

Acts 17:11

The Bereans received the Word with open hearts and searched the Scriptures daily to test everything they heard. In a world full of error and heresy, we need more men and women like them.

Acts 15:6 (with Acts 14:23)

The New Testament uses three words for one office, and its churches more often than not had more than one elder. A pastoral look at what the Scripture says about elders in the local church.

1 Corinthians 16:13–14

Paul closes the most chaotic letter in the New Testament with five short commands: be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong, and let all that you do be done in love.

1 Corinthians 16:5–12

Ministry is never abstract. It is made of real people, real decisions, and real sacrifice. Four priorities from Paul’s closing words to the church at Corinth.

1 Corinthians 15:1–11

Paul argues for the resurrection of Jesus like a lawyer, calling witness after witness to the stand. Five witnesses, one verdict, and a question for every soul who hears it.

1 Corinthians 13:8–10

Tongues will cease. Knowledge will be done away. Even the Bible itself will one day give way to the face of Christ. Everything in this life has a yellow price sticker on it somewhere, but love is forever.

1 Corinthians 12:12–27

Is your congregation the kind of place where when one person suffers, the rest feel it? The Apostle Paul says it ought to be, because the church is not a social club, but the living body of Christ.

1 Corinthians 11:2–16

In 1920 every woman in every church in America worshipped with her head covered. Today the practice has nearly vanished. Something changed, but was it the church that finally got it right, or did the church quietly stop listening to its Bible?

1 Corinthians 9:15–27

Paul was not driven by a salary or social standing. Woe to him if he did not preach the gospel. What does that compulsion look like when it shapes every liberty, every habit, and every comfort a Christian holds?

1 Corinthians 4:1–5

When the words of another Christian are running on a loop in your mind at three in the morning, Paul calls it a very small thing. Here is why, and why the verdict that actually matters was already settled at the cross.

1 Corinthians 3:10–15

The foundation has been laid and it is Jesus Christ alone. But each man must take heed how he builds on it, because fire will test every bit of the work.

2 Corinthians 3:1–6

False teachers demand Paul's credentials. He has no papers to show. What he has is a church, lives the Spirit of the living God rewrote on hearts of flesh, and that is the only credential a true minister ever needs.

2 Corinthians 2:12–14

Paul walks away from a wide-open door in Troas because his spirit has no rest. Then he lifts his eyes and sees a procession, and the whole tone of the chapter changes.

2 Corinthians 2:15–17

The same fragrance of Christ produces opposite reactions. Life to the saved. Death to the perishing. And the four marks of faithful speech that separate the servant from the peddler.

2 Corinthians 2:1–11

A repentant brother stands in the foyer Sunday morning. Removing him was one obedience. Restoring him is another, and Paul says many churches fail this second test while Satan walks through the gap they leave open.

2 Corinthians 1:12–24

The Corinthians put Paul’s whole ministry on trial over one changed travel plan. His answer climbs past his own calendar to the cross, where every promise God ever made was paid for and sealed Yes in Christ.

2 Corinthians 1:1–11

Paul was burdened beyond his strength and despaired of life itself. God brought him to the end of himself on purpose, killing his self-reliance so he would trust the only One who raises the dead.

Galatians 6:11–16

Paul closes Galatians with one sentence: may it never be that I would boast, except in the cross. The flesh always finds something to point to. Paul has only one thing.

Galatians 3:1–5

Paul asks five pointed questions in Galatians 3, and every one of them has the same answer. The grace that saved you is the same grace that is keeping you, and it is the same grace that will one day bring you home.

2 Timothy 4:1–18

Paul needed two things at the end of his life, and you and I need those same two things: the fellowship of God’s people and the Word of God. William Tyndale asked for the same things from his own prison cell fifteen hundred years later.

2 John 12–13

John had many things to write. He set the pen down. Full joy, he told her, waits on the other side of real, face-to-face fellowship with God's people.

2 John 7–11

Christian hospitality is a genuine virtue, but it has limits. Those limits are drawn at the fundamental teaching of Christ. What you host, you endorse.

2 John 4–6

Christian hospitality is inseparable from walking in truth and love. John rejoiced over a walk he could see. Love is not a feeling you wait on. It is an obedience you choose.

2 John 1–3

Christian hospitality is not built on warmth or sentiment. It is built on truth. John writes to a woman whose welcome was rooted in what she believed, and his warning still stands.

2 John 1

John addresses his second letter to “the elect lady and her children.” Was she a real woman or a symbol for the church? The debate is old, but the text is plain, and faithful Baptist commentators have weighed in.

3 John 9–11

Every church, at some point, meets a Diotrephes, the man who loves to be first. John named him, confronted him, and left us a warning that still cuts to the quick two thousand years later.

Jude 24–25

How will I ever make it to glory given my sin and weakness? Jude closes his letter with an answer that should silence every fear: God is able to keep you, and the credit belongs entirely to Jesus Christ.

Jude 3–4

Jude sat down to write about salvation and found himself writing a declaration of war instead. A call to every believer to earnestly contend for the faith once delivered to the saints.

1855

Charles Spurgeon's catechism, compiled in 1855 from the Westminster Assembly's and Baptist Catechisms for the use of his own church and congregation. 82 questions and answers on God, salvation, the Ten Commandments, and the means of grace.

1833

A clear and concise eighteen-article statement of Baptist belief drafted by John Newton Brown and adopted by the New Hampshire Baptist Convention in 1833.

1742

Adopted by the Philadelphia Baptist Association in 1742 and printed by Benjamin Franklin in 1743. Drawn largely from the Second London Confession of 1689, it became the prevalent doctrinal standard of early American Baptist churches.

1689

The foundational confessional document of the Particular Baptists, first published in 1677 and publicly subscribed in 1689 by the ministers and messengers of upwards of one hundred baptized congregations in England and Wales.

1646

The 1646 second edition of the confession published by seven Particular Baptist congregations in London, written to vindicate themselves against the false charge of Anabaptism and to set forth their faith from the Scriptures.

1611

The full text of the long preface the King James translators wrote for their 1611 Bible, missing from most modern KJV editions. A primary-source defense of translation work, written in the translators' own voice.