5 Ways Our Words Can Be Verbal Cyanide
We must resolve to discipline ourselves regarding the use of the tongue.
The tongue, so tiny, is immensely powerful. It is indeed mightier than generals and their armies. It can fuel our lives so that they become fiery furnaces, or it can cool our lives with the soothing wind of the Spirit. It can be forged by hell or it can be a tool of heaven. Offered... Continue Reading
When Eugenics Goes Viral
The baby boy’s short life and death were publicly documented for public consumption—all except for the gruesome details of his death.
It is frankly repulsive to see Ridgway claiming that he and his wife were “grieving the loss of their unborn child.” They did not lose him. They deliberately decided to have him killed at twenty-one weeks—when he could feel pain, suck his thumb, hear voices, and stretch—while recognizing that he was, in fact, an “unborn... Continue Reading
Grace Presbytery Deposes and Excommunicates Minister
It is anticipated that Willett may face charges in an additional county in the near future.
At its May 2026 presbytery meeting, since Willett could not appear before presbytery and did not submit a plea in writing, a plea of not guilty was recorded on his behalf, counsel was appointed, and June 9 was set as the date of his trial. The presbytery conducted the trial on Tuesday, found Willett guilty,... Continue Reading
A Response to PCA’s CN Study Committee
Not all cultures are equal; not all religions are compatible with the liberal conservative order.
Many new PCAers are Evangelicals, coming to Calvinist churches in the heyday of the racial reconciliationist moment of the early 21st century. And there are bad actors in the internet. But therein lies the problem. Not every conversation can be, or should be, about race and antisemitism. And those controversies should not govern questions of... Continue Reading
When You Feel Small or Insignificant
You and I ultimately serve the Triune God in our work and lives, and that makes all the difference.
The first thing to learn from this parable relating to feeling small and insignificant is, that you are neither small nor insignificant, because you are using what you have been given to honor the Lord. God sees it, and He sees you as important, valuable, significant. Therefore, in prison, the Apostle Paul was a success... Continue Reading
Marriage, Worship, and the Public Witness of the Church
BCO 59 is not a long chapter, but it gives us a sober and pastoral view of marriage.
Marriage should not be treated as a purely individual decision detached from family, church, and counsel. A young man and woman may be the ones getting married, but they are not the only ones affected. Families are joined. Households are shaped. Future children are impacted. Congregations are often involved. It may surprise some people... Continue Reading
Sex and a Just Society
Christian sexual ethics are not arbitrary or idiosyncratic edicts.
Faithful marriage is the best anti-poverty program, the best educational program, the best anti-crime program, and the best defense against loneliness and social anomie. Conversely, the sexual revolution has exacerbated these and other evils. There are the abortions, the diseases, the exploitation, the cruelty, the dehumanization, and more. Sexual sin destroys justice. This is... Continue Reading
Are We Forgiven for the Sins We Can’t Remember and Therefore, Don’t Confess?
God loves us too much to allow us to be entangled by sin.
Remember that 2 Corinthians 10:5 encourages us to “take every thought captive to obey Christ.” When doubts arise, we’re to challenge them with the truth of God’s Word. 1 John 1:9 reassures us: “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”... Continue Reading
Wisdom Incarnate
Proverbs and the Sermon on the Mount.
What we behold shapes us. Our allegiance must therefore be pure and undivided. The call to holiness is ultimately the call to imitate God. Jesus commands, “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). Peter echoes this command: “Be holy, for I am holy” (1 Peter 1:15–16). We are to... Continue Reading
View Your Past Through the Lens of God’s Faithfulness
Friend, God has been faithful to you, even if you don’t know the full extent of that faithfulness.
When we look backward, we often do so wondering whether or not God has been faithful. When we feel that sense of loss, we begin to question whether or not He has actually faithfully provided. Or sustained. Or guarded. Or strengthened. But what if we changed our lenses? The type of lens makes... Continue Reading
The Reformation at 500: Luther’s Wasted Year?
For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.
In spite of all appearances during that year of waiting in the shadows, God was not finished with Luther, and Luther was not finished with the Reformation. To quote a popular line, things were not falling apart—they were merely falling into place. I love studying the Reformation at this season of the year.... Continue Reading
The Church’s True Purpose
Aligning with God’s plan in a broken world.
History is not random. The rise and fall of nations, the suffering and triumph of God’s people, even the opposition of God’s enemies—all of it is being woven into a tapestry that will display His glory. If you ask a group of Christians, “What is the church for?” you’ll probably hear a variety of... Continue Reading
How to Read the Bible When Your Heart Feels Cold
“My heart is again burning within me as the Spirit opened the Scriptures to me.”
When our hearts were once on fire with scriptural truth and now they are not, we must realize that nothing has changed in the Bible; heaven and earth will pass away before a single letter changes in Scripture (Matt. 5:18). No, it is we who, by our sin, have quenched the Spirit and the fire... Continue Reading
Your Beginning in God’s Purpose
Long ago, God wrote your name—and it wasn’t on a scrap piece of paper or on a list of to-dos.
Why is it that you, today, believe in Jesus? Is it because God just so happened to look down one day, notice your life spinning out of control, and enter in? Was there a point in which God was a newcomer to your life—reacting to the mess of some new situation? Or, in truth, had... Continue Reading
On Pleasant Places, Part 2: The Commitment
The consequences of living in a world broken by sin reach us as well, and we know the sorrows of sickness and death, of conflict and conflagration.
Family matters. Not because we’re all really cool, but because we are chosen and set apart and loved by the God who made all things and whose Son has purchased us with his own blood. That’s a good place to start. Part 1: The Call In the second stanza of Psalm 16, David... Continue Reading
The Servant’s Descent
How would you describe the depths of Jesus’ love?
John, in His Gospel account, lays out for us a divinely-inspired expression of the Son in similar fashion of overlapping, defining description. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God” (John 1:1–2). Try to develop a graphic that captures... Continue Reading
I Choose to Live for Jesus Christ First.–Maxim # 57
Not just the love I have for Him, but the love He has for me.
“For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised” (2 Corinthians 5:14, 15). This... Continue Reading
Eight Barriers to Unity
Each side is ready to think that the other should and will concede to them and will not risk division on so little a thing.
Christians, separated as they are from one another across a variety of denominations and splinter groups, nevertheless generally agree that more unity would be a good thing. While we value the spiritual oneness we have in Christ irrespective of different labels and groupings, Scripture is clear that this spiritual oneness should be reflected in visible... Continue Reading
Better Than a Utopia
In the midst of our pain, in the darkness, we don’t need freedom from that season or pain…instead we need God.
Wouldn’t it be nice if God at least let us Christians off the hook? I mean, we’re adopted into the family of God, so wouldn’t it be nice if, as His family members, He’d be like, “it’s ok, you don’t need to face the atrocities of this world”? I mean, if I had all the... Continue Reading
Prayer: Finding Peace
Why can you have peace? You can have peace because of the trustworthy God you are addressing!
In a crisis, even unbelievers quickly pray. Why is that? Even they seem to know God is their only hope. When, as a believer, my world seems to be collapsing—slowly or suddenly—prayer should be my first, fast, and reflexive action. Whether it’s during the immediate impact, as my personal “earth” is still quaking, or in... Continue Reading
Time Outside of Our Hands
There's a season for everything, even what we want to avoid.
Man has the limitation of time and death, but God experiences no such limits. (This makes the incarnation of Jesus that much more glorious and breathtaking.) What God does endures forever (Eccl 3:14). This is in stark contrast to the works of man which will pass away, be forgotten, or both. God has designed this... Continue Reading
From Where Does My Help Come?
He guards your feet. He works day and night. He keeps your going out and your coming in.
Jesus, the true temple, the One who has fulfilled the purpose of the feasts, has come to us. He is our help. In the midst of suffering He is with us. When we’re tempted to sin He is ready to give more grace. No matter the time of day or the location, He is always... Continue Reading
God’s Promises Stand, Even When All Seems Lost
God sees you. He hears you. God hasn’t failed you. And in Christ he never will. So hold fast. Even here. Even now. The promise still stands.
So what do we do when life feels like it’s falling apart? When prayers seem unanswered, when loss is real, when the weight of suffering presses in? Two things must anchor us. Have you ever gone on a treasure hunt? A friend of mine once sent a girl he liked on a birthday... Continue Reading
Godly Disobedience
Such obedience to God often carries painful consequences because sinful authorities possess the power to inflict suffering upon those who resist them.
We know that all earthly authorities—civil magistrates, church officers, husbands, parents, employers, and others—are sinful, and yet God knowingly requires us to submit to them in the Lord. However, He does not permit those authorities to require sinful conduct from those under their care. Not only may a human authority not command someone to sin,... Continue Reading
PRIDE And the New Babel
Pride is not a sexual revolution. It is a theological revolution.
The answer to Babel has therefore never been self-expression. The answer is repentance. The answer is not the creation of a new self but submission to the One who made us. The answer is not constructing an identity from our desires but receiving an identity from our Creator. One of the greatest mistakes modern... Continue Reading
A Father’s Work: No Idols
A father is to keep a watchful eye on his children, even in his weakness.
The sin of idolatry is a rejection of the only True God. A father must protect his family from that sin. He does so by his own example and by requiring his children to walk in obedience to the commandments of God. Since a father cannot change the heart, it will begin as external conformity.... Continue Reading
The Phone is No One’s Enemy
They are part of the fulfillment of the mandate God gave to Adam and Eve in Eden.
Part of “subduing” and “ruling” (Genesis 1:26-28) is fulfilled in phones, computers, and other technology. Yes, these things can be and are abused. But the problem is in the person who operates it, or, in the case of children harmed, the parents who allow its use. But the phone is not the problem. We... Continue Reading
The God on the Ballot
What happens to a people who hand a prince the trust that belongs to God alone?
“Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation” (Psalm 146:3). The Psalmist is not telling you to abandon the public square. He is telling you where salvation does not live, so that you will stop demanding it from an address that cannot supply it. “It is... Continue Reading
Why the Whole Counsel is So Important
“For I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27).
Living out Acts 20:27 means that all our thoughts and actions are constantly to be corrected or revised according to divine, transcultural norms. Averse which has been at the center of my life for over a half century has been on my mind a lot lately. Several of us have begun strategizing and working... Continue Reading
What Is the Fruit of Joy?
The perception of Christianity is that it’s all rule-keeping and no fun.
The fruit of joy blossoms from the heart of God’s gracious work. His very indwelling by His Spirit gives joy because He Himself is joyful. This is far more than a superficial cheeriness or a passing happiness dependent on circumstance. Joy overflows from a heart wholly satisfied in Christ and daily takes delight in Him.... Continue Reading