Proclamation is a free monthly discipleship article promoting robust, religious thought in the tradition of orthodox, historic Christianity. To add yourself or a friend (or a pile of friends!) to the mailing list please request by emailing billboek@hotmail.com (contributors names will not be shared with recipients).

Below is the archive of Proclamation articles:

Issue 1: Christian Vocation: The Meaning of Your Life [July 2009] A few months ago I made a pastoral visit to an unmarried couple who were living together in our city. After letting me in, the man motioned for me to sit down on the floor… read more [View printable PDF]

Issue 2: Piety within Proper Bounds: John Calvin on Worship [August 2009] One of the trends among Christians today is a desire for only practical Bible messages. People don’t want to hear about religious topics that are irrelevant to their faith-walk. In many ways this is an appropriate demand since all true theology is practical (2 Tim. 3:15-16). But is “worship” one of those relevant topics?…read more [View Printable PDF]

Issue 3: What is Christianity?: Answering One of Life’s “Simple” Questions [September 2009] Sometimes the simplest questions are the hardest to answer: What is life? What is love? What is happiness? These are concepts that are as important as they are difficult to define. So it is with the question in focus in this article…  read more [View Printable PDF]

Issue 4: The Reformation: An Historical Overview and Application [October 2009] October 31 is the anniversary of an event which, although seemingly insignificant at the time, would prove to be the great impetus for a reform movement that would change history; not only that of a church but of western culture as a … read more [View Printable PDF]

Issue 5: Thanksgiving Day: Honoring our Biblical and National Heritage [November 2009] What are your plans for Thanksgiving Day this year? Maybe you haven’t thought about it yet but suspect that the day will be much like last year. For some of us this means attending a church service. Most of us will gather … read more [View Printable PDF]

Issue 6: The Fullness of Time: Understanding the Context of Christmas [December 2009] For my family, living in a community with a coal-mining heritage has been a new experience. Since we didn’t grow up hearing the stories about the days when “coal was king” we have found that taking coal mine tours and reading …read more[view printable PDF]

Issue 7: On Resolutions: Why Do Good in the New Year? [January 2010] Depending on when you are reading this, you may have already broken most or all of the resolutions you set for the new year. The old…read more[View Printable PDF]

Issue 8: Christian Freedom: Liberation from Legalism and Laziness [February 2010] Imagine that you are no longer in twenty-first century America. Imagine that you have been transported across the…read more[View Printable PDF]

Issue 9: The Fruit of Justification: Victorious Living in the Light of God’s Smile [March 2010] Some time ago I listened to a Christian mother voice her concerns about  the manner of living of her adult…read more[View Printable PDF]

Issue 10: A Resurrection Overview: The Crux of Christian Hope [April 2010] Do you believe that , after you die your physical body will be resurrected someday? This was the question a polling… read more[View Printable PDF]

Issue 11: Honor Your Mother: Live Long and Prosper [May 2010] When you hear the word “honor,” what images come to mind? Do you picture a soldier dodging bullets to pull… read more[View Printable PDF]

Issue 12: The Marcions Have Landed [June 2010] The following is reprinted with permission from Carl Trueman’s The Wages of Spin: Critical Writings on Historic & Contemporary Evangelicalism…read more[View Printable PDF]

Issue 13: Shepherding a Child’s Heart: Getting to the Heart of Behavior [July 2010] The following is reprinted with permission from Tedd Tripp’s Shepherding a Child’s Heart…read more[View Printable PDF]

Issue 14: Prepare to Die: Deriding All Our Deeds [August 2010] Matthew 7:21-23 is one of the most terrifying texts in the New Testament.“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of ...read more[View Printable PDF]

Issue 15: Five Things Your Teens Want You to Know (But May Not Be Telling You) [September 2010] One of the social highlights of my year happened this spring. I didn’t attend a high-profile conference or… read more[View Printable PDF]

Issue 16: Avoiding Chronological Snobbery [October 2010]Many of us may struggle with the feeling that the church is already too old-fashioned. If so, why should we…read more[View Printable PDF]

Issue 17: Capitalizing on Conversation: Principles for Talking with Teens [November 2010] If verbal interactions with teens in your life lack the intimacy of true conversation (or are too often characterized… read more [View Printable PDF]

Issue 18: Assessing Advent: Four Reasons Why Jesus Came to Earth [December 2010] Rudyard Kipling called “Why” one of the “six honest serving-men” who taught him all he knew. “Why” is a marvelous teacher because it helps us to identify the purposes, reasons and meaning behind events that we observe…read more [View Printable PDF]

Issue 19: A Model Sermon: Learning from Peter’s Preaching [January 2011] If you have young children or grandchildren in your family, perhaps you’ve seen the Disney-Pixar film, A Bug’s Life. The movie imaginatively portrays life in an ant colony which is visited annually by a group of marauding grasshoppers who consume the food laboriously collected by the ants throughout the season. The only explanation given by the queen ant for this ongoing process is, “They come. They eat. They leave… read more [View printable PDF]

Issue 20: Sexual Integrity: Honoring God inside and outside of Marriage [February 2011] In our day few of God’s commandments speak to our culture as powerfully as the seventh. The command is simple and brief: “You shall not commit adultery” (Ex. 20:14). But encapsulated in this statement on human sexuality is the idea that, “All unchastity is accursed of God; and that we must, therefore, detest it from our heart, and live a chaste and continent life both within and outside of holy wedlock.” Surrounded as we are by rampant sexuality, God’s call for purity challenges our culture head on… read more [View printable PDF]

Issue 21: Preparing for Surgery: Pondering God’s Grace in the Face of Trial [March 2011]This week my youngest daughter is scheduled to have surgery at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). She has a blockage where her ureter connects to her bladder. This is a difficult and trying road that we have been down before; Ada had her first operation in October of 2009… read more [View printable PDF]

Issue 22: The Resurrection: An 18th Century Defense for 21st Century Christians [April 2011] The two key elements at the heart of Christianity are the cross and the empty tomb. Rarely do many outside of the faith deny the veracity of the cross. That Jesus of Nazareth died in Jerusalem under the oversight of Pontius Pilate is a well-attested fact… read more [View printable PDF]

Issue 23: Life, Liberty and Little Ones: A Biblical Response to Abortion [May 2011] Shoot the doctors?  Attend every pro-life demonstration?  Yell and scream “murder” whenever abortion is even alluded to?  Often these are the accepted, or expected, responses to the abortion issue within the evangelical community. read more [View printable PDF]

Issue 24: Ultimate Questions: Helping Our Children Discern God’s Will [June 2011] We have only one opportunity to walk through this world. Our life is like a vapor that appears for a short time and then vanishes (James 4:14). The choices we make in this life are critically important; if we make the wrong… read more [View printable PDF]

Issue 25: The Greatest of Friendships: Developing Friendship with God [July 2011] Most of my high school classmates signed their yearbook pictures with the letters “A. F. A.” above their signatures. Back then these letters stood for, “A Friend Always.” It goes without saying that most of these messages have… read more [View Printable PDF]

Issue 26: Group Bible Study: Are We Wasting Our Time? [August 2011] It’s six o’clock Wednesday evening. Your church’s mid-week Bible study starts in one hour but you don’t feel like going. The trouble is, you can’t think of a fresh excuse and you don’t dare to say what you, (and several others) would like to say… read more [View Printable PDF]

Issue 27: Thriving Under God’s Discipline: Trading Temporary Pain for Eternal Gain [September 2011] None of us need to be told that our lives are sometimes painful. We struggle with feelings of inferiority and inadequacy. We experience the frustration of physical pain and failure… read more [View Printable PDF]

Issue 28: The Duty of Discipleship: Edifying the Church Inter-generationally [October 2011] Christian discipleship is deceptively simple. When spiritually mature people convey their piety to others discipleship is taking place. The good news is that discipleship doesn’t require scientific studies, tactical gurus or expensive materials. But here’s the bad news: If either ingredient is lacking… read more[View Printable PDF]

Issue 29: Blessing the Lord on a Full Stomach: Learning What It Means to “Never Forget” [November 2011] Sometimes ordinary words can be transformed and infused with new meaning by epochal events in history. Take, for example, two words which have become ubiquitous on bumper stickers, shirts, hats and other memorabilia over the last ten years. “Never Forget.” read more [View Printable PDF]

Issue 30: Assessing Advent (2): Four (More) Reasons Why Jesus Came to Earth [December 2011] We’ve all seen the bumper stickers: “Keep Christ in Christmas.” Most of us would instinctively agree with that idea. Still, the slogan is a bit vague. If we didn’t mind using the whole bumper we might better… read more[View Printable PDF]

Issue 31: Scoping Out Apollos: Nine Marks of a Healthy Christian [January 2012] Most great pirate stories have one thing in common. At some point someone slides out their spyglass and focuses in on an unsuspecting person. His every movement can be seen in the black-bordered circular frame. Figuratively speaking, the scriptures are a spyglass for the Christian… read more[View Printable PDF]

Issue 32: Choice Words: A Matter of Life and Death [February 2012] Having been out of grade school for a few years I’m not sure if the old saying is still ordinary playground parlance: “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.” If it is it’s still a lie. The Bible is more honest. “Death and life are in the power of the tongue” (Prov. 18:21)… read more[View Printable PDF]

Issue 33: Christian Community: Contentment without Complacency [March 2012] Christian reflection on community is often an exercise in romanticism. By viewing the early Christian community of Acts 2 through rose-colored glasses we imagine a homogeneous cloister of haloed saints meeting all of each other’s expectations, living as one big happy… read more[View Printable PDF]

Issue 34: Christ our High P-R-I-E-S-T: Remembering Christ’s Work on the Cross [April 2012] In 1941 Winston Churchill stood before an eager audience at an all-boys school in war-torn England and spoke these famous words, “Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never—in nothing, great or small, large or petty—never give in.” Churchill’s words echo the thrust of the message of the writer to the Hebrews. read more[View Printable PDF]

Issue 35: Behold Your Mother!: The Legacy of Jesus’ Love for Moms [May 2012] Have you ever wondered what it would be like to have a perfect child? Can you imagine a child who never threw selfish tantrums or scowled at the meal you set before him? Can you conceive of a kid who never left his room trashed… read more[View Printable PDF]

Issue 36: The Office of Christian Man: Applying Christ’s Three-fold Office to Men [June 2012] If modern television sitcoms were the litmus test for masculinity, our expectations of men would be minimal. It’s no secret that for most of the last half century television has depicted fathers as incompetent buffoons… read more[View Printable PDF]

Issue 37: Making a Marriage: God’s Blueprint for Marital Success [July 2012] To say that Christian marriage is under attack today is a great understatement. The statistics are telling. Fewer people are pursuing marriage and those who do are waiting longer to get married. In 1960 fifty-nine percent of eighteen to… read more[View Printable PDF]

Issue 38: Join or Die?: Addressing the Question of Church Membership [August 2012] In 1754 Benjamin Franklin published a cartoon called “Join or Die.” It pictured a snake cut into eights representing the British colonies in the New World. Franklin argued that unless the colonies formed one body they… read more[View Printable PDF]

Issue 39: The Church’s Missionary Task: Obeying God’s Call to Reap in His Fields [September 2012] Have you ever sung the following words? “Lord of harvest, send forth reapers; hear us, Lord, to Thee we cry; send them now the sheaves to gather, ere the harvest time pass by.” read more [View Printable PDF]

Issue 40: The Canons of Dort: An Historical Introduction [October 2012] In recent years Calvinism has acquired a new level of energy and interest. In 2009 Time magazine called Calvinism one of the top ten ideas changing the world. But what is Calvinism? Broadly speaking Calvinism (named after… read more [View Printable PDF]

Issue 41: The First Thanksgiving: An Historical Introduction [November 2012] For many Americans, everything we know about the First Thanksgiving we learned in elementary school. Maybe that’s why we have no problem picturing the Pilgrim Fathers wearing black construction-paper steeple hats surrounded by large families in warm homes eating restaurant-grade food… read more [View Printable PDF]

Issue 42: Assessing Advent (3): Three (More) Reasons Jesus Came to Earth [December 2012] As the Psalmist says, all of creation declares the glory of God (Psa. 19:1). But nothing glorifies God like the incarnation of his Son. As Charles Spurgeon said, “Sing, sing, O universe, till thou hast exhausted thyself, yet thou canst not chant an anthem so sweet as the song of the incarnation!” read more [View Printable PDF]

Issue 43: Biblical Personal Finance: Earning and Spending for God’s Glory [January 2013] Imagine what the people of God could do if their financial houses were in order. That paraphrase of a question often asked by a popular financial advisor is meant to be an exercise in hopeful anticipation of what actually could happen. read more  [View Printable PDF]

Issue 44: Profiting from Preaching: Learning to Truly Hear God [February 2013] It’s a few hours after church on Sunday. The phone rings. An excited voice on the other end of the line announces: “You’ve been selected to win a million dollars. All you have to do is think about this morning’s sermon and tell me the theme, the main points, and a few personal applications… [View Printable PDF]