The First Conspiracy Theory and the Dangers of Hidden Knowledge
Fascination with the mysteries to which God has not granted us access paves a road to decay, death, and ultimately, hell.
The problem in the garden was not curiosity, or even theorizing, it was not the seeking after truth, it was doubting God’s goodness and rightful authority. It was forgetting that he is truth. We all carry within us a longing for the garden, for a life of both freedom and connection. In Eden, there... Continue Reading
Not Knowing Where You’re Going, Part 1—It’s Okay
Abraham, by faith, went out, “not knowing where he was going.”
God is a goal setting and plan making God. We are made in His image and we can do the same. That doesn’t mean what we come up with will be perfect like His, or that our plans will happen; but often it will be part of the means to discover more about where we... Continue Reading
God’s Children Really Will Live Happily Ever After
The prospect of seeing God eclipsed all of Job’s heartaches. Surely it can eclipse yours and mine.
At last we see the restoration of God’s ideal universe, fulfilling His plan of the ages, culminating in a resurrected people living with Him on a resurrected Earth. Then, and only then, will we live “happily ever after.” In The Chronicles of Narnia, C. S. Lewis paints a beautiful picture of the New Earth in the... Continue Reading
They Can’t “Keep It Gay”
The inherent radicalism of same-sex marriage can’t help but lead to other rebellions against the created order.
The rejection of the normative reality of male and female for our lives is the source of the radicalism of same-sex marriage. It dethrones male and female from their place as essential aspects of who we are, degrading them into mere objects of subjective sexual desire. This is a denial of God and of His... Continue Reading
Pray For the New PCA Stated Clerk
The PCA is called to pray for Fred Greco’s faith, family, leadership, and gospel partnership as he begins his tenure as Stated Clerk
Pray that the LORD would bless Fred Greco, his wife, Deb, and his ministry. Might the LORD continue to mature Fred in his faith, in grace, and in his walk with Christ. Pray all these for the glory of our heavenly King, the one true God, Yahweh. As Fred Greco, our new Stated Clerk,... Continue Reading
The Glory of Overlooking an Offense
Love covers a multitude of sins.
The easily offended heart is always reaching for the spotlight. Love reaches for the blanket instead, and it does so without needing anyone else to agree the offense was real, or small, or forgivable. Love just covers it and moves on. I recently began reading The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas, and a line near the... Continue Reading
Get History, and Whatever You Get, Get History
History is part of God’s general revelation from which we ought to learn and can learn.
We are historical creatures, and we must steward our humanity by giving attention to history, recognizing that the world we see around us is not unattached from all that has come before it. Should I be reading something else? The question rolled around my mind as I sat reading David McCullough’s 1776 while on... Continue Reading
Why Christians Must Learn to Think Biblically in a Confused World
Keystone Habit #2—Rooted in God's Word
Christians who are not rooted in God’s Word will eventually begin to see, feel, and live like the world around them. Those who let the Word of Christ dwell in them richly will discover increasing stability, joy, discernment, peace, and spiritual fruitfulness. A tree can appear healthy for years while its root system is... Continue Reading
Gideon’s 9700
When God Has You on the Sidelines
What matters most is to be where we bring God the most glory. And only God can know where we need to be to bring him the most glory. The other day, I was reading the story of Gideon in Judges 7. I’ve read the story many times, and have always been taken by... Continue Reading
Watching What We Wear
Modesty: We should be ashamed to show off certain features of our anatomy in public.
The reality is we all have “unpresentable parts”—parts of the body that are not evil but are to be “treated with greater modesty” (1 Corinthians 12:23). To call upon Christians—women and men—to cover up these parts is not cruel and unusual punishment. In truth, it’s an important way we honor God and love one another.... Continue Reading
An Unavoidable Political Building Block
Sin affects the way we think and plan.
“Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint” (Alexander Hamilton). This common idea was corollary of human depravity. In “What the Founders Didn’t Trust,” Barton Swaim argued, as many of our posts have, that the depravity of man... Continue Reading
The Unhindered Gospel
Scars for Christ were left on the apostles' backs.
The Lord had made clear that the road from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth was paved with suffering, the pathway of the cross. It turned out pretty quickly that the life of the church was not going to be some fairytale honeymoon. The honeymoon, at least proverbially, is one of the best... Continue Reading
Why Did God Give Us Mosaics?
Incredible beauty can arise from what appears to be little more than chaos, waste, and fragments.
God sees beauty beyond our marred natures, He sees possibility beyond our fractured circumstances, He sees ability beyond our broken bodies, and so He shapes it, He assembles it, and He polishes it into something wondrous, something worthy of His name. In many of the great European palaces, you can find entire walls that... Continue Reading
Sowell on Discrimination and Disparities
Clear thinking instead of reckless emoting is needed here.
Disparities come about for all sort of reasons.…Thomas Sowell is one clear thinker who has discussed this in detail. He has penned dozens of vitally important books that dissect and dismantle the reigning leftist orthodoxies. Why do some people, or groups, or nations, seem to do better than others in various ways? The standard... Continue Reading
On Ministry, Part 4: The Qualities
Love for God—manifested by obedience—renders us to serve others well.
Our spiritual gifts (1 Timothy 4:14) are not for our benefit; they’re for everybody except us. Our task is to serve those alongside us by doing well what we can do, in order to strengthen them in their faith and in their walk. Having laid out the qualifications for the church ministry offices, Paul... Continue Reading
The Keys of the Kingdom: On Church Discipline (WCF 30.1–30.4)
A church that refuses to practice biblical discipline is not just a defective church; it is not a church at all.
To watch a sheep wander toward a cliff and refuse to use the shepherd’s crook to pull them back is pastoral malpractice. The keys of the kingdom are heavy, and church censures are agonizingly painful for the elders who must administer them. Yet, they are a vital gift from our King—a spiritual immune system given... Continue Reading
Striving Side by Side
The Mind of Christ and the Mission of the Church
To strive side by side for the faith of the gospel is far more than a call to teamwork. It is a call to embody together the self-giving life of the crucified and exalted Lord. Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and... Continue Reading
Sermons Are Not Ted Talks
Preaching Maxims, Numbers 1-50
Sermons are fundamentally a spiritual exercise, more art than science, more gift than craft. When centered on faith in the Son of God, who gave Himself for us, they are nothing less than an encounter with the living God. Introduction1 I first wrote these maxims on the social media platform Formerly Known as Twitter... Continue Reading
Learning the Logic of Leviticus 8-10
Place & Priest
On the same day, the very day of their ordination, two of the priests, Nadab and Abihu, sinned grievously, offending God’s holiness. The Lord killed them. We learn sober lessons. God regulates worship. Worshipping the Lord is a matter of life and death. Destruction comes to all who do not worship God as he has... Continue Reading
The Darkest of Dark Ages
It seems clear that infanticide is the wave of the future in the West.
A new Dark Age is upon us. The therapeutic culture has perverted our culture’s moral imagination.…We truly live in a world where good is called evil and evil is called good and where the murder of innocents is seen as a sign of moral progress. Indeed, the former Dark Ages perhaps don’t seem quite so... Continue Reading
Ordered Liberty After the Protestant Public Square
Reflections on Christian Nationalism, Protestant Institutionalism, and the Church’s Limits
The church can teach that liberty must be ordered without claiming the state’s office. The church can declare that rulers are accountable to God without giving the magistrate the keys of the kingdom. This article is not intended to replace, summarize, or correct the PCA’s ongoing study of Christian Nationalism. That work deserves careful... Continue Reading
The Ordinary and Enduring Gifts of the Spirit
All God-given gifts are to be used to serve the body of Christ, not to build ourselves up.
God calls us to use the “ordinary” gifts that He has given us, cheerfully, for the good of others and for His own glory. Scripture teaches that when Christ ascended, “he gave gifts” to all His people (Eph. 4:8). These gifts were given to strengthen and build up the church, the body of Christ.... Continue Reading
Assembly Declares Israel’s War in Gaza a Genocide
After hearing emotional testimony from a former GA moderator who recalled fleeing his home as a child, commissioners voted 454-15 to approve the measure.
As amended, RIW-04 states that Israel’s war in Gaza constitutes genocide and condemns what it calls Israel’s violation of the U.N. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. MILWAUKEE—The 227th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) voted last week 454-15 to adopt RIW-04, declaring that the government of Israel... Continue Reading
Christ and the Third Use of the Law
Correct and discipline your child, but never fail to remind her of the source of her obedience—of Christ and his gospel.
Apart from Christ, we have no ability to live the Christian life—to love others. We must constantly hear the indicatives—who we are in Christ and what he has done on our behalf. We must hear of the Spirit’s work in our hearts and lay hold of the life-giving words of the gospel in order to... Continue Reading
Three Gauges Every Pastor Should Watch
Burnout can be an overused word, so we should use it carefully and not confuse it with ordinary fatigue.
Many pastors can carry seasons of intense labor without burning out, as long as there’s meaning, support, recovery, and a shared load. Burnout tends to take root when the work becomes unrelenting, when our hearts begin to grow cold, and when we start to believe that our work doesn’t make a difference. So pay attention.... Continue Reading
Why Jesus’ Incarnation Stands Alone Among All Faiths
The incarnation accomplishes one saving purpose: God restores sinners to himself, brings them into his holy family, and is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters.
Salvation is not merely forgiveness. The child born to Mary is also Immanuel (Matt 1:23). Sin separated humanity from God’s presence; to restore God’s presence, sin first had to be dealt with. The incarnation begins the saving work that removes the barrier between God and humanity. John says the Word became flesh and “made his... Continue Reading
Shutting Down Christian Speech
A counseling bill in the United Kingdom shows that British Christians cannot escape the culture war.
Principled Christians here in the United States are better protected for now, as we saw in the hopeful precedent set by SCOTUS’s ruling in favor of therapist Kaley Chiles. In Colorado, an attempted ban on so-called “conversion practices” was struck down as an infringement on Chiles’ freedom of speech. Like Pilkington, Chiles used talk therapy... Continue Reading
The Jews, the Church, and Two Ditches to Avoid
What do Gentile Christians actually owe the Jewish people?
Romans 11 is not about foreign policy, it simply exhorts Gentile Christians to not be arrogant towards the Jews. It says maintain humility about your position as a wild olive shoot grafted into a tree you did not plant. None of that translates into a requirement to support any particular nation’s foreign policy. The only... Continue Reading
Giving Gifts to Men: Christ’s Provision for His Church
Gifts should be more about the well-being of the whole church than the preoccupations of its individual members.
Like many lights illuminating a large room, the triune God shines more brilliantly through Christians gathered together than apart. Gifted grace fosters “humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love” and being “eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (4:2). Graces are others-centered, which means that... Continue Reading
Carl Trueman’s Royal Elegy: A Confessional Reformed Critique
Over-reliance upon description over prescription reduces scholarship to a mere diagnosis of the disease rather than a theological cure for a godless society.
Even within a deeply pluralized, multi-faith setting, historic Reformed theology does not default to the compromise King Charles has chosen. The civil ruler still bears an office of divinely ordained authority and is morally restricted from using that authority to equate the Christian faith with false religions or to relativize absolute truth claims. The transition... Continue Reading