The Vision (8.7.26): Water out of the Rock

 

Devotion based on Sunday afternoon sermon on Exodus 17 on July 26, 2026.

Exodus 17:3 And the people thirsted there for water; and the people murmured against Moses, and said, Wherefore is this that thou hast brought us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst?

Exodus 17:6 Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb; and thou shalt smite the rock, and there shall come water out of it, that the people may drink. And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel.

In Exodus 17, the LORD answers the chiding, the striving, and the murmuring of his people, not with the immediate wrath and judgement it rightly deserved but with water from the rock.

In commenting on this passage, Edmund Clowney noted how God said to Moses in v. 6: “Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb.” Clowney added: “God will stand before a man. God will stand in the prisoner’s dock. He will stand before the upraised rod of Moses, as though he were a guilty prisoner….” He continued: “Still more—incredibly, God says to Moses, ‘Thou shalt smite the rock!’ The rock on which God stands is the symbol of God himself. God’s name is the rock (Deut 32:4, 31). Moses raises his rod and strikes the Rock” (in E. Radmacher, Ed., Can We Trust the Bible?, 48). Clowney, of course, sees in this account a foreshadowing of the cross of Christ!

From the one stricken comes a river of life. Indeed, we cannot read of water being given to a thirsty people without thinking of Christ’s description of himself as “living water” when he spoke to the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4:10). He also declared on that occasion:

But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life (John 4:14).

The apostle Paul makes a similar point to Clowney in 1 Corinthians 10:4 when he says of the Israelites of that time that they “did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ.”

In Christ God answered our chiding and striving and murmuring with living water. His banner over us is love (Song of Solomon 2:4).

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle

The Belgic Confession, Pauline Authorship of Hebrews, and Confessional Subscription

From X Post:

Was Hebrews written by Paul? Should such a claim be raised to confessional status?

Teaching last evening in our Midweek Doctrine Series through the Belgic Confession, looking at Article 4: Canonical Books of the Holy Scriptures.

Struck by the explicit inclusion of Hebrews as among the "the fourteen epistles of the apostle Paul" in the listing of the NT books. I'm sympathetic to this view and also like this structure for the NT: 4 Gospels and 1 Acts; 14 Pauline epistles; 7 General epistles; 1 Apocalypse (Revelation). I wondered, however, how those who hold to the BC handle issues related to subscription if one does not hold to Pauline authorship of Hebrews (or takes an agnostic view on this matter). I've been reading the study by Jan Van Bruggen (1909-1965), The Church Says Amen: An Exposition of the Belgic Confession (Inheritance, 2003) as a companion to the series. Van Bruggen says here, "Hebrews is attributed to Paul, but that is incorrect (see Hebrews 2:3)" (36).

An editorial footnote adds: "Rev. Van Bruggen indeed states this strongly; however, since it is not certain who wrote the letter of Hebrews, it should not be ruled out that Paul could have written it. The annotations to this verse [Heb 2:3] in the Dutch Staten Bijbel makes a strong argument in favor of Paul's authorship" (36, n. 8).

Interesting that the WCF/2LBCF 1:3 does not make this explicit claim of Pauline authorship of Hebrews, though many of the framers likely would have agreed with it.

JTR

WM 390: A New Scholarly Defense of the Woman Caught in Adultery (John 7:53--8:11)

 

Extra links for this episode:

New Books Podcast (8.2.26).

Book on Mohr Siebeck website.

TBS booklet defending PA.

JTR

2026 Youth Conference Audio: Samuel Frain on "Answering the Problem of Evil."

Image: Young people and speaker at the Mount Zion Hunt Club in Highland County (the normal turnabout point on our Saturday morning hike/walk).

CRBC hosted our annual Youth Conference Friday-Saturday, 23-24, 2026 at the Machen Conference Center in beautiful Highland County, Virginia.

Conference speaker Sam Frain, Pastoral Assistant at Emmanuel RBC, Verona addressed the topic: "Answering the Problem of Evil" in four messages, followed by a Q & A session. Here are audio links:

Session 1: What do we mean by the Problem of Evil?

Session 2: The Problem of Evil & the Fall of Man.

Session 3: The Problem of Evil & the Cross of Christ.

Session 4: The Problem of Evil & the Second Coming of Christ.

Session 5: Q &A

JTR

The Vision (7.31.26): The Ordination of the Twelve

 

Note: Devotional based on Sunday morning sermon on July 26, 2026.

Mark 3:14 And he ordained twelve, that they should be with him, and that he might send them forth to preach, 15 And to have power to heal sicknesses, and to cast out devils:

We see in the early chapters of Mark that many men flocked to Christ as he began his ministry. They would later abandon him when he went to the cross.

Among his many followers he called some to be his disciples. These included Simon and Andrew, James and John, and Levi (Mark 1:16-20; 2:14).

Mark 3:14-19 describes how he set apart or ordained Twelve of these men who would serve as Apostles.

It begins in v. 14 with the simple statement: “And he ordained twelve.”

Mark then notes two reasons for their appointment:

First, that they might be with him (v. 14a). The Lord Jesus is Immanuel, “God with us.”  Notice that Mark does not say that he appointed twelve that they might go to rabbinic school or seminary.  Their education or training for their task would come from spending time with the Master.  The primary task of the apostles will be the accurate preaching and writing about the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus.  To do this, they had to be with him, and he would remain with them to the very end of the age (cf. Matthew 28:19-20).

Second, that they might be sent out to minister in his name (vv. 14-15). This involves preaching (v. 14b) and healing (including casting out evil spirits) (v. 15). Notice in the final chapter of Mark how the risen Christ commissions these same men (sans Judas Iscariot) to preach the gospel to every creature (16:15) and to perform the extra-ordinary apostolic signs including healing and casting out devils (16:17-18, 20). Note: This is another proof for the authenticity and originality of Mark’s Ending!

This was a special calling for the apostles, but callings will extend to ordinary ministers after them.

Hudson Taylor (1832-1905), pioneer missionary to China, wrote to his colleagues after the death of his beloved wife after childbirth:

 

I trust we are all satisfied that we are God’s servants, sent by Him, to the various posts we occupy, and that we are doing His work in them.  He set before us open doors we have entered, and in past times of excitement He has preserved us.  We did not come to China because missionary work here was either safe or easy, but because He had called us.  We did not enter upon our present positions under guarantee of human protection, but relying on the promises of his presence.  The accidents of ease or difficulty, of apparent safety or danger, of man’s approval or disapproval, in no wise affect our duty.

Let us follow and serve him where he has called us.

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle

WM 389: Another Unicorn Sighting!

 

JTR

The Vision (7.24.26): Do Christian today still keep the sabbath?

 

Image: Morning skies, North Garden, Virginia, July 2026.

Note: Devotion taken from last Sunday's sermon on Mark 2:23--3:6.

Is the moral law of God, as epitomized in the Ten Commandments, still binding on the consciences of believers today?

We would probably not have an argument over 9 of the 10 commandments. The controversial one would be the fourth commandment: Remember the sabbath day to keep it holy (Exodus 20:8).

Many evangelicals today would say this law is now abrogated, like the dietary rules or the keeping of the Passover.

One popular Study Bible (MacArthur’s) has a note at Exodus 20:8 which says of the fourth commandment, “Belonging especially to Israel under the Mosaic economy, the Sabbath could not apply to the believer of the church age for he is living in a new economy” (p. 125).

Reformed (Biblical) theology, however, rejects the rejection of the Sabbath.

We maintain that God’s moral law has not fundamentally changed. The fourth commandment is a creation ordinance. It was established when God made the world in the space of six day and all very good and then rested on the seventh day (Exodus 20:11), and it remains.

The only shift that has occurred in this commandment since the coming of Christ is that the sabbath is no longer a seventh day sabbath, but it is now a first day sabbath, the day when Christ was gloriously raised from the dead (John 20:1, 19; Acts 20:6-7; 1 Corinthians 16:1-2). So, from creation to the resurrection, the sabbath was the seventh day, and from the resurrection of Christ till the second coming, it is the first day of the week.

As Paul wrote in Hebrews 4:9: “There remaineth therefore a rest [sabbatismos] to the people of God.”

We believe that when we look at the Scriptures, and especially at the Gospels, we find that Christ nowhere rejected the sabbath, although he did reject those who were adding unbiblical laws about the sabbath (like forbidding works of necessity, Mark 2:23-28, and mercy, Mark 3:1-6).

Christ affirmed Biblical sabbath keeping and rejected unbiblical sabbath keeping.

On this special day we set aside what is lawful to do on other days and give ourselves to the public and private exercises of God’s worship.

Let us follow Christ’s teaching and example and call the sabbath a delight (Isaiah 58:13). Let us not think that we have to keep the sabbath, but that we get to keep the sabbath.

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle

WM 388: Responding to an INQUISITOR: Is affirming the MASORETIC TEXT as "kept pure in all ages" INCOHERENT?

 

JTR

WM 387: BLQ Article: THE SEPTUAGINT & MODERN CHALLENGES to the Traditional Text of the OT (Part 1)

 

Read a PDF of the article here on my academia.edu page.

JTR