Psalm 45 Publications

At 10:32 P.M., on Labor Day, September 1st, 2008, God interwove his covenant faithfulness and mercy with the miserable effects of the ancient curse on the woman (see Genesis 3:15-16), and miraculously changed the tortured cries of birthpangs into the joy and triumph of new life. This was both a shadow-reminder of what he had done through Christ Jesus our Lord, some two thousand years ago, when he worked the greatest mercy through the deepest anguish, bringing eternal salvation out of the tortured cries of our Savior, who was made sin for us (2 Corinthians 5:21), who became the curse that our rebellion deserved (Galatians 3:13), and who, through that unspeakable suffering, flooded the wicked world of darkness and despair with the joyful beams of light and life (cf. John 16:20-22); and it was also a sign and promise of what he will complete someday, turning the birthpangs of this cursed world into the eternal joy of redemption, in a new heavens and new earth, where righteousness dwells (Romans 8:18-25; 2 Peter 3:13-14). It is only fitting, as we pause to consider the mighty thing that God has done for us this day, that we take advantage of this opportunity to commemorate the mighty and merciful triumph of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ the Righteous. Continue Reading

Part One: Principles by Which to Order My Life

1.Life is short, and comprises the only time I have to labor for eternal results. Psalm 90:10; Ecclesiastes 9:10

2.After the brief duration of my life, I must stand before the judgment seat of Christ, and give an account of how I used my time. Hebrews 9:27; 2 Corinthians 5:10

3.If I have failed to put my time to eternally profitable ends, but live instead for the present, I will receive punishment and shame. Matthew 25:24-30; Luke 16:25

4.The only way in which I can certainly devise which ends are eternally profitable is by taking heed according to God’s Word. Psalm 119:9-11; 2 Timothy 3:14-17

5.The ultimate end of my existence, and the end to which I should direct all my labors, is the glory of God. Isaiah 43:7; Revelation 4:11;1 Corinthians 10:31

6.The glory of God is best displayed by its being seen and delighted in. John 17:1-7; Ezekiel 28:22; Psalm 32:11; 34:8

7.The glory of God is best seen through the person and redemptive work of Jesus Christ. John 1:14, 18; Hebrews 1:1-3; 1 Corinthians 1:23-24

8.The person and redemptive work of Jesus Christ is the central theme of the Word of God. John 5:39-40; Luke 24:25-27, 44-47

9.Therefore, my time will best be spent in laboring to see Christ from the scriptures, and thus glorifying God and securing my own eternal joy. John 17:24 Continue Reading

1. Thinking is much like traveling: for just as when a man travels he moves from scene to scene, and is ever confronted with new sights, so a thinking man moves from thought to thought, and is ever confronted with new vistas and different perspectives and vantage points.
2. And just as a traveler may only find himself in new locations by moving there one step at a time, so a thinker may only find new territory by proceeding from his starting point, one connection at a time, until he finds himself someplace that he has not seen before. Continue Reading

On the joyous occasion of the arrival of our firstborn son, Mishael Calvin Pitchford, we would like to express publicly our thanks and praise to God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. All of the bountiful gifts that God has lavished upon us reflect in some way who he is. Mishael is a greater blessing than we could possibly have imagined; and at this wondrous manifestation of God’s great liberality, we are reminded in several ways of the greatness of God himself. Continue Reading

I have spent most of my day in that world which is at once familiar and strange and weird and inexplicable, that world which, for one to inhabit it he must be both indolent and restless, hopeful and melancholy, rational and befuddled – in short, an absurd mass of contradictions; that world which, if you have never been there, no amount of elaborating will suffice to describe it for you. I have been in a world, that is to say, of random musings, and being particularly susceptible, therein, to sudden impressions, I have decided to record a few of my wandering thoughts. This is an unwonted reaction, and I am faced immediately with the overwhelming concern that these ramblings will be no more interesting to the reader than they are satisfying to me, and that both of us, therefore, will walk away from the experience singularly unfulfilled. But on further thought, that plight is not at all unusual, and I suppose my contribution can only be indicative, not causative; which consideration greatly alleviates my sensations of guilt. Continue Reading

Our conception of time is generally based on our understanding of motion: that is, time appears to us ordered by events of change in the relationship of one thing to another in space. That occurrence of change in space which seems to us the most fundamental and predictable we understand to be our truest indicator of time; therefore, the constant motions of the heavenly bodies mark for us our seasons, and form the basis for our organization of time. But time can also be ordered by any other regular and predictable series of events, such as the motion of a clock, which gives us a constant source of events to relate to events in our lives and thus generalize time lapsed between these events. We understand motion to be a change in the relationship of one object to another in space. We consider space to be without substance, and relationships in space to be determined only by matter: thus Albert Einstein’s conclusion that space between matter is not cognizable, and that the only means we have to signify the distance between bodies is to cognize an extension of matter between the two bodies, and measure that imagined body as we measure any other matter. Space, therefore, is determined by matter, and has no objective existence. In other words, space is a predicate of matter, or an arbitrary cognition by means of which we categorize the interrelation of mass. In attempting to describe time from these presuppositions, we run into several problems: first, time becomes individualistic; time is ordered differently in each person’s mind as he perceives different events and relates other events with them. And second, time becomes arbitrary, as it is determined by motion; time essentially changes as motion increases or decreases, and as the motion of a particular body changes relative to the motion of another body, time that is predicated of the one motion changes in relation to time which is predicated of another motion, so that time is no longer a simple system of relationships, but a composite system, significant of nothing. In other words, we view time both as the cause of motion and a predicate of motion, which is obviously a logical contradiction. And also, by this subjectivity, time loses its ability to interrelate. With no structured order, space-time then becomes chaos. Continue Reading

The physical world in which we live is perceived by us both materially and temporally: we are fundamentally aware of space; without the apprehension thereof, we can have no empirically-based cognition; we are secondarily aware of matter: matter is possible only in space, but space is possible without matter. We can conceive of no other material possibility than fundamental space and secondary space-mass. (By space-mass I mean to signify that the presence of matter does not negate space, but fundamentally changes the space in which it exists.) From this point forward, however, I will use space-mass to signify the entire material creation, or space and matter collectively. Temporally, we are fundamentally aware of time, and secondarily aware of motion: time and motion relate to each other precisely as space and matter relate to each other. Time, therefore, is the essential element for temporal cognition, and is possible to be, and be conceived, by itself; motion is possible only in time. All of temporal awareness is therefore determined by time and time-motion, that is, by time essentially, either with or without motion. Continue Reading