Holiness & Politics?
The American republic deemed religion in civil society to be a cornerstone of healthy democracy.
Benjamin Rush notes that Christianity should support government “only from the love of justice and peace.” And he warns against clergy “settling the political affairs of the world.” This advice seems wise. Clergy are called to a particular vocation, to preach the Gospel, to disciple believers, to administer their churches. They are not generally invested... Continue Reading
Adoniram Judson and Deconstructing One’s Faith
Many individuals who encourage people to deconstruct their Christian faith engage in all types of inaccurate and unfair characterizations of biblical Christian teaching.
True biblical Christianity provides the clearest understanding, the strongest support, and the greatest assurance to get through this life and to prepare for eternity. We put ourselves at peril in this temporal earthly life and in the eternal life to come if we ignore the Bible’s Christian truths. We hear a lot these days... Continue Reading
How Jesus Satisfies Our Desire for Authentic Beauty
We were designed to treasure beauty; we just look for it in the wrong places.
The resurrection points to the importance of our bodies. Gnosticism claims the body is bad, but Scripture says our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit (6:19). We glorify God by taking care of our bodies, but we can go too far if we seek to glorify them now rather than waiting for God to... Continue Reading
Natural Disasters—Chance or God?
God has revealed that he rules over all his purposes, and they will be accomplished (Isa. 55:11).
Even though we may not know God’s particular reasons or motives for allowing hurricanes, floods, and wind-fueled fires, we know he rules over them. They do not occur by chance. The glory of God displayed in them can surely be terrifying. Our hearts feel like breaking when friends and families lose their homes and belongings. Yet, to... Continue Reading
Be Radical: Don’t Let Politics Hijack the Pulpit— Christ is King
Keep Christ King
There’s only one cornerstone of the church that the world is constantly trying to pull us away from—Jesus. I’m begging you not to forget your identity in Christ during this political season. Do the radical thing. Keep your eyes fixed on Christ, the author and perfecter of your faith. Man, has that junk mail... Continue Reading
R.C. Sproul vs The Westminster Divines on the Christian Sabbath
Sproul raises a difference of opinion within the church regarding Sabbath recreation and acts of mercy.
Are we to infer that God commands us not to work on the Sabbath in order that we might enjoy 21st century entertainment on the Lord’s Day? Are all non-work lawful pleasures that are suitable for Saturdays somehow appropriate for Sunday? Did God command rest for one day in seven so that 21st century moms and dads would... Continue Reading
Anxiety: What is Our Hope?
Jesus beckons us towards God’s love using three reminders.
Our God will carry us, nurse us, and bind up our wounds, even as we feel the loss, and he will get us to where he has promised. Now is not the whole story. But he is with us now, taking care of what he knows we need. This is the kind of gospel that... Continue Reading
Responding to Hurricane Helene – Part 2
Giving thanks in all circumstances.
Be reminded that the Lord is good, and the Lord is sovereign. Because He rules and reigns, the Christian says with Job: “The Lord gives and takes away…” Because the world is subject to God’s providence, the Christian’s grumbling should be changed to Job’s good confession: “Shall we receive good from God, and shall we... Continue Reading
The Evangelistic Shift
There is very little evangelistic openness in the center-left world.
Once the issue of trans identities arose, an openness to traditional Christian accounts became more costly….The social costs for progressive non-Christians of simply expressing an openness to or curiosity about traditional forms of Christian belief became much higher. When I first started writing online in the early 2010s, most of what you might term... Continue Reading
Further Thoughts on Political Discussions in Christian Forums: A Series of Incomplete, Unscientific, but Hopefully Helpful Reflections
Render unto Caesar, but not where you ought to render only unto God.
If you believe a response is justified, let your first aim be to vindicate Christ’s honor, not that of yourself or your preferred candidate, party, or position. It is he who is most wronged when his forums are turned from a concern with his will to earthly affairs which distract from his redemptive kingly reign... Continue Reading
Withholding Nothing
If we are fully convinced of God’s goodness, we will be willing to withhold nothing from Him in faith.
What are the limits of my faith? Where will I stop when God instructs me to take a hard step?…To even suffer so that His life and sufficiency in me can be more brilliantly displayed for all the world to see? He said, “Do not stretch out your hand against the lad, and do... Continue Reading
Review: “Ownership: The Evangelical Legacy of Slavery in Edwards, Wesley, and Whitefield”
Sean McGever joins the evangelical deconstruction project with his most recent book.
But even with this, McGever disregards scriptural passages on guilt, justice, repentance, and forgiveness (such as Deut. 19:15, 24:16, Lev. 19:15, Ez. 18:4, Matt. 18:21-35, Luke 19:1-10, Eph. 4:32). He also ignores the fact that while God uses various (and often imperfect) agents to draw men unto Himself, the spiritual genealogy of every evangelical originates... Continue Reading
The Honour of Being God’s Servant
Those who want to be the greatest in Christ’s church have to be servants, and serve God by serving others.
We must not lay stress on our service, as if it deserved our hire. When we have done all, we are unprofitable servants. Indeed, though He say, “Well done, good and faithful servant,” yet our reply ought to be, “When saw we thee hungry, and fed thee?” Moses, the great leader of God’s people... Continue Reading
The Church Faces the Challenge of Pro-Abortion America
Christians need a strategy to respond to the increasingly secularized world around us.
As America’s secularism becomes obvious, we who are Christians and church people need a strategy for the future. Strange to tell, such is nothing more than what should have been our strategy all along: a focus on things above, of the things of eternity, exactly that for which the Apostle Paul called in his letter... Continue Reading
Gone Are the Dark Clouds
Are we willing to publish the good news by sharing it fully?
The gospel allows us to know the God of the universe because of Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection—but it takes courage to explain. Specifically, courage to preach repentance and forgiveness of sins. The gospel must include the larger story of why we rebels need good news granted solely through Christ Jesus. My dad left... Continue Reading
Outsourcing Discernment in an Age of Mass Information
Why Christians need to be the smartest about news.
How can we possibly make sense of news firing at us all the time and from every direction? The answer is, we don’t. In fact, many don’t even try. We prefer our “news” pre-digested and delivered to our feeds. In other words, we have outsourced the hard work of discernment to others. Elon Musk... Continue Reading
Shifting Sands and Stable Hope
Cultural Crisis and the Light of Christ
We hope, pray, and preach that out of our present chaos, many will find their way not merely to a forgotten cultural heritage carved into the side of the rock, but to the rock itself. As Spurgeon famously said: “Oh blessed hurricane, that drives me to the rock of ages.” So much has changed,... Continue Reading
Yearning for Heaven: Shifting Our Paradigm
"Heavenward" by Cameron Cole
I share Cole’s desire that we live with eager expectation, longing for our resurrection into the age to come in the new heaven and the new earth (Rev 21:1). But Cole’s pervasive language of ‘heaven’ often confused me. Although he acknowledges our ultimate future is resurrected bodies in a new creation (13–14), he usually refers... Continue Reading
The Depth of Our Depravity
Our sin is what pushes us to God.
We were created to live in dependency upon God. This was not added because of man’s fall. It was how we were designed so that we would forever live in union with our Creator. Our sin explains why we are separated from God, and our separation from God explains our continuing, increasing sin. Without Him... Continue Reading
A Biblical Case for the Christian Principles of Voting
Everyone in authority is accountable to God to do what they can, according to their power and position, to uphold the moral law of God.
Wherever there is a choice between candidates, where one of those candidates, if elected, will clearly do more to uphold the moral law of God to protect the good and punish evil, you have a moral obligation before God to vote for that candidate. That is how you exercise your God-given authoritative position as voter,... Continue Reading
On Humility
On knowing God and self.
As William Law (1698-1761), the English author of A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life once put it: “Humility is nothing else but a right judgment of ourselves.” That’s it. True humility is knowing who we really are, in the light of knowing God as he really is. Not only that, but when... Continue Reading
Natural Disaster and Pastoral Comfort
Though the sufferer is brought low and will often struggle though immense pain and loss, there is a realistic hope for him.
God intends either discipline or testing by what is suffered, and both produce the good of improved sanctification.[29] We are not allowed to take “natural calamity” out of that package of necessary suffering for the believer. God in His providential care designs the calamity as a blessing in sometimes macabre dress. We are to “consider it... Continue Reading
Godly Parenting as a Witness to the World
The goal of godly parenting is not just to raise well-behaved children, but to raise children who know, love, and serve the Lord.
The Apostle Paul writes, “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Eph. 6:4). Both the negative (discipline) and the positive (instruction) are in view here. Disciplining and teaching children involve more than just passing on biblical knowledge or enforcing rules. It means... Continue Reading
The Uncarnation of Christ?
The devil loves to see people live with an uncarnate “Christ.” Live from the incarnation with the incarnate One. Jesus is real.
We need the truth about Jesus, but not without Jesus himself. Who would ever settle for accuracies of a friend and yet never experience friendship? Systematic theology, which we love, doesn’t love us in return. But Jesus loves us. The doctrine of the virgin birth cannot comfort us when the news of cancer hits home—but... Continue Reading
Digital Discipleship for Your Children (5) Addiction to Distraction
If you allow your child’s diet to be all the sugar of Disney, Facebook, X, TikTok, Instagram, etc., you will have a hard time getting them to eat the meat of God’s Word.
True reality is not found in the mere visual. “For we walk by faith, not by sight”. Christian imagination enables us to experience hoped-for things as substantial, and things not seen as if they are evidentially present (Hebrews 11:1). Biblical imagination actually prioritises words over images. It focuses on the meaning of words, particularly God’s... Continue Reading
The Ordinary Means of Ordinary Outreach: Reaching Our World without Losing Our Way, Part 2: Sacrament
I pray that the Lord will use His people’s zeal for the sacraments to kindle a quickening jealousy in the hearts of the lost, leading them to Christ’s saving mercies.
Our secular world tells us to look inside ourselves so that we might find the good within, but at the Lord’s Table, we are asked to examine ourselves so that we might find our weakness and sin so that we might be taught to rely more and more upon Christ’s sacrifice, which becomes more endearing... Continue Reading
Holiness in an Age of Worldliness
If you want a place with singing, celebration, joy and feasting, then live for the place where you get all those things forever.
The temptation to do whatever it takes to be prosperous is very strong. It is a kind of magic spell that beautiful Babylon puts over us. It’s like a potion that dulls our spiritual senses so we cannot fathom living any other way. Babylonian worldliness leads people to trust in their prosperity. It perpetuates the myth... Continue Reading
A Different Kind Of Grief: The Story Of The Man Who Shaped Me
My father and I shared a bond built on respect, love, and a mutual commitment to our Christian faith.
For many, grief brings despair, anger, or fear. Yet, my father’s passing hasn’t stirred those emotions in me. He lived his life with nothing left unsaid or undone. My four brothers, sister, and mother—his wife of 66 years—feel the same. We didn’t face his death with regret or unfinished business. We shared the rare gift... Continue Reading
Distracted Worship
How frequently do we mentally "check out," not realizing that every ignored sermon, skipped reading, and lukewarm worship service violates this commandment?
It’s easy to think, “Well, I’ve never bowed before a golden calf. I’ve never kneeled before a shrine.” But idolatry isn’t just about tangible images; it’s about worshiping God in ways He hasn’t commanded. Every time we sit through a sermon and let our minds wander, playing with our phones during worship, or when we’re... Continue Reading
My Story and the Book of Hosea: The Grace of Exposed Sin
Even as you see how deeply sinful you are, trust the Lord and his goodness as you walk through the painful grace of exposed sin.
Like Adam and Eve in the garden, I found myself scrambling for the nearest fig leaves to cover my nakedness. But being in the hand of the Lord is the safest place. It is God’s disciplining grace that exposes our sinfulness so that we will be cleansed, purified, and conformed into the image of Christ.... Continue Reading