East of Everest

Image credit: RAH

Latest Posts & Commentary

Commentary & Exposition

How Christ’s Toil Made Light Work

The condition of Israel's affliction & redemption from Egypt

In the end, the LORD made affliction to become a servant to Israel’s flourishing. This, in fact, predicts the gospel: The curse would not prevent God’s promise.

Read the Post

Read the Post

Commentary & Exposition

- Acts of the Apostles
- Acts 2:1-13

Reading the Old Testament by the New (& the New by the Old)

The Christian reads as did the prophets, by the Spirt and in search of Jesus Christ

The Pentecost feast found its expected celebration in the usual sequence of Jewish festival days that became part of the Jewish calendar in connection with the Exodus. Pentecost was, accordingly, an annual Jewish festival; but this particular Pentecost found a unique situation and expression because it succeeded Jesus’ recent resurrection.

Read the Post

Read the Post

Select Quotations

An Ironic, Apprehensible Summary of a Problem

A brief and well-known excerpt taken from C.S. Lewis’ 1941 sermon, "The Weight of Glory"

“We are far too easily pleased.”

Read the Post

Read the Post

Notes on Scripture

A Brief Note on the Jewish Feasts

The formal recognition of the life of men & the presence of God

Each of the feasts were to be annually observed as a reminder of God’s deliverance of Israel from Egypt to the land of promise. One feast, though, was never to be celebrated without the others, for, together, they recited a single narrative and history.

Read the Post

Read the Post

Select Quotations

Moral Awareness: Caught up in the Middle of Things

Moral obligations are discovered in moral experience

"It would be nice to test the ground of morality before we step on it. But to all such proposals there is one inevitable reply: they come too late."

Read the Post

Read the Post

Commentary & Exposition

- Acts of the Apostles
- Acts 2:1-13

When Facts are Crowned with Meaning

A short introduction to the second chapter of Acts

The meaning of scripture, in this way, is the gift of God to the questions that he, himself, excites in man. This is illustrated on Pentecost day, in the litany of strange phenomena that overtakes the crowd that is gathered in Jerusalem.

Read the Post

Edits & Rewrites

Read the Post

Commentary & Exposition

- Exodus
- Exodus 1:1-22

When History is Made Prophecy

Eve, the Hebrew midwives, & God's salvation

If Israel’s deliverance from Egypt eventually forecasts Christ’s redemption of sinners, it should be of no surprise that Israel’s bondage is also associated with the effects of the Fall.

Read the Post

Read the Post

Ascribed & Prescribed (Notes on Ideas)

The Gift of Samuel

Children, Intimacy & Divine Desire

Hedonists everywhere should be concerned; after all, lust is what it has always been. Even when it is attended by pleasure, lust remains ungratified and ungratifying. This will surprise no one, but it does seem to bother some. Otherwise, there would not be such a rush to exalt lust as love, or to confuse their rewards.

Read the Post

Holiness does not consist in mystical speculations, enthusiastic fervors, or uncommanded austerities; it consists in thinking as God thinks, and willing as God wills.

John Brown, Expository Discourses on 1 Peter

East of Everest

2020-04-27T17:15:32-06:00

John Brown, Expository Discourses on 1 Peter

Holiness does not consist in mystical speculations, enthusiastic fervors, or uncommanded austerities; it consists in thinking as God thinks, and willing as God wills.

https://eastofeverest.org/testimonials/john-brown-expository-discourses-on-1-peter/

See the heinousness of sin by this, that Christ was made a curse...
...if thou wouldst know what sin is, go to mount Calvary.

Thomas Goodwin, Christ our Mediator

East of Everest

2020-04-27T17:17:59-06:00

Thomas Goodwin, Christ our Mediator

See the heinousness of sin by this, that Christ was made a curse... ...if thou wouldst know what sin is, go to mount Calvary.

https://eastofeverest.org/testimonials/thomas-goodwin-christ-our-mediator/

Everybody, soon or late, sits down to a banquet of consequences.

Robert Louis Stevenson

East of Everest

2020-05-12T17:57:29-06:00

Robert Louis Stevenson

Everybody, soon or late, sits down to a banquet of consequences.

https://eastofeverest.org/testimonials/robert-louis-stevenson/

Grace knows no jealousies except for the honor of God.

Geerhardus Vos, Seeking and Saving the Lost

East of Everest

2020-10-24T15:18:03-06:00

Geerhardus Vos, Seeking and Saving the Lost

Grace knows no jealousies except for the honor of God.

https://eastofeverest.org/testimonials/2256/

And the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God, and into the patient waiting for Christ.

The Holy Bible, 2 Thessalonians 3:5

East of Everest

2022-02-08T07:20:05-07:00

The Holy Bible, 2 Thessalonians 3:5

And the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God, and into the patient waiting for Christ.

https://eastofeverest.org/testimonials/2-thessalonians-35/

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.

C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

East of Everest

2020-04-27T17:11:26-06:00

C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.

https://eastofeverest.org/testimonials/c-s-lewis-the-four-loves/

East of Everest

Scripture Notes & Commentary

- Commentary & Exposition

- James
- James 1:1-27

Temptation, Patience & the Gift of God’s Time

Temptation as the ground of triumph

Only faith may so work in the presence of temptation to produce what temptation sought to destroy—virtue. This is the irony of James’ admonition.

Read the Post

- Commentary & Exposition

- Romans
- Romans 1:13-21

The Power of God Conceived in his Revelation to Man

The gospel, God's rule, and righteousness

- Notes on Scripture

- Galatians
- Galatians 5:1

Mood, Medium, & Message

The character of the biblical revelation informs the content of the sermon

See All Notes & Commentary

Assorted Articles

- Reflections (& Refractions)

Life’s Rhythms & the Telling of Time

Contemplating affection for eternity in the passing of days

Time, then, becomes something more to us than the measured span of what we do. There is also the frightening contemplation of what is not done: tasks uncompleted, people unvisited, God’s grace unacknowledged.

Read the Post

- Ascribed & Prescribed (Notes on Ideas)

The Stump Speech Becomes Secularism’s Sermon

Flattery, politics, & the search for power

- Essays & Assorted Articles

Syrian Religion in Ancient China

Syncretism & religious aspiration

See More Articles

Read & Overheard

- Select Quotations

Religion is Contemplated in God’s Gift of Redemption

A Selection taken from Herman Bavinck’s The Wonderful Works of God

"Without special revelation the religion of men and the philosophy of thinkers do not have a right knowledge of God, and hence no right knowledge of man and the world, and of sin and redemption."

Read the Post

- Reflections (& Refractions)
- Select Quotations

Making Place for Time

Sin wickedly ascribes an evil character to time

In the beginning, time possessed no argument with the creator or creature, but showcased the passing moments in which God revealed himself to man in his creation. If believers for the moment must still feel the pinch of time in space, that is the effect of sin and not time itself.

Read the Post

- Overheard
- Reflections (& Refractions)

Defacing the Truth, Destroying the Conscience

Terrence Malick’s film reminds us that the present becomes a horrible future after we join hands to misconsider the past

“What we do is just create sympathy. We create…we create admirers. We don’t create followers."

Read the Post

See All Related Posts

A Prelude to Eternity

Eschatology: Eden & the Millennium

From the moment that Adam sinned in time, salvation would be mediated through covenants, all of which were inaugurated in time. Those same covenants are now the record of history, and yet some of us are persuaded that their fullest expression is yet to come. The Lord Jesus is the seed, subject, and fulfillment of those covenants, but some of them find their complete expression in the Millennium.

Read the Post