What Happens When the Church Gathers for Worship?
When Heaven and Earth Overlap
When the church gathers in Christ’s name, heaven and earth overlap in a mysterious and glorious way. The risen Christ walks among his churches, ministers to his people, and prepares them for the everlasting assembly to come (Revelation 1-3). From a biblical perspective, the gathering of God’s people is not merely a spiritual add-on... Continue Reading
Are You the Reason People Are Believing in Jesus?
When your life crosses theirs, does it make a difference?
What can a dead man do? We were completely impotent. For those of us who have been spiritually raised from utter death to live and walk with Christ, this too is all of God. Our part now is to walk with Him and testify of the One who raised us from hell to heaven and... Continue Reading
The Cozy, Comfy, Warm Blanket Sin of Complaint
Considering the idolatrous nature of grumbling.
It is difficult to complain against God when you are bringing Him your heart. Your grumbling begins to transform into prayer. Your complaints turn into petitions. You stop dethroning God and start running to Him instead. I want you to consider with me the sin of “complaining.” That might register as a small-scale sin... Continue Reading
The Quiet Theology of “All Creatures Great and Small”
Compassionate and attentive to His creation. Human dominion was meant to mirror that same care.
The quiet goodness portrayed in All Creatures Great and Small resonates so deeply. It echoes something true about the world God is restoring. And what the show captures in glimpses, Christ is bringing to fullness: a life where ordinary faithfulness, shared burdens, and steadfast love are not small things at all, but signs of His... Continue Reading
The Courage to Raise Godly Children
It is the duty of all Christians to cherish and nurture our children.
We need much wisdom as we approach parenting and raising our children, and until Christ’s return Christians have the privilege and duty to raise their children in the love of God, obedience to his commands, and true hope in Christ our Savior. A while back I read a series of articles by author Alex... Continue Reading
God’s Mercy in Withholding Wealth
Learning to thank God for a circumstance we often despise.
When Christ is our greatest treasure, our hearts rest content in Him. By loving Christ above all, our other loves become appropriately ordered. Wealth becomes a mere tool in service to His will. One time early in our marriage, I, exasperated by yet another unexpected bill, voiced the following sentiment to my wife: “Wouldn’t... Continue Reading
Dept. of War Removes Wicca and About 180 Other Belief Systems as Recognized Religions
The religions that remain are various denominations of Christianity, Buddhism, Mormonism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Sikhism and the Baha'i faith.
The directive ultimately came from Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, who pledged last year to overhaul the military’s Chaplain Corps by refocusing it on religious ministry and eliminating what he called secular influences. U.S. Army soldiers pray on September 11, 2011 during a protestant service at Bagram Air Field, Afghanistan. Ten years after the... Continue Reading
Why Is the Church Ignoring the Growing Sports Gambling Crisis?
The consequences are catching up—bankruptcy, loss of savings, depleted college funds, and unchecked addiction.
Finding the practice [gambling] morally wrong and actively fighting the addiction in the pews are two different things.…a few churches and ministries are working to sound the alarm and address the issue. Calvin Ridley, star receiver for the Atlanta Falcons, was suspended for an entire season in 2022 for gambling on NFL games. The... Continue Reading
Suggestions to Members of the Mississippi Valley Presbytery for the 222nd Synod of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church regarding Erskine College
To strengthen our shared witness, protect our people and resources, and help Erskine more fully fulfill its historic calling.
Theologically, Erskine exists as an instrument of the church for the church’s purposes. Its primary calling—the formation of ministers and the Christian education of our covenant community—is not a business function or an administrative one. It is a spiritual one. Brothers and Fathers in the Lord, I am not writing in an official capacity... Continue Reading
The Fear of Man
The fear of man is a trap, but the fear of God is safety from every snare.
The remedy for the fear of man is to have a greater fear. “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matthew 10:28). To fear God is to kill the fear of man. I don’t care... Continue Reading
The PCA Committee Report on Christian Nationalism: The Problem in the Middle
The Religious polytheism endorsed by the Committee is a prescription for the death of a nation.
Note that the position of the Committee is that the free exercise of “all religions” in our nation is entirely consistent with the PCA’s constitutional standards. In this context “all religions” does not mean all Christian denominations as it did during the time of the writing of our founding documents. It means all religions including... Continue Reading
Be Satan’s Worst Nightmare
Satan is no match for Jesus, and our Good Shepherd protects us and fights for us.
The born again saints of the church drive the devil to distraction when we stand up to him and refuse to allow him to “bully” us. One of the privileges of the true (regenerate) saints of the church, is that we get to frustrate the devil’s designs against us—and hence, make his existence even more miserable... Continue Reading
Covenant Theology and Eastern Orthodoxy
Eastern Orthodoxy rejects the Reformed understanding of both sola Scriptura and justification by faith alone.
Eastern Orthodoxy, by grounding authority in Holy Tradition and righteousness in synergistic theosis, builds religious hope upon sand—unstable and contingent—whereas confessional Reformed theology builds religious hope upon the rock—the firm foundation of the covenant of grace, as the self-evidencing Scriptures authoritatively reveal a finished work and an imputed righteousness, received by faith alone. Both... Continue Reading
The Root of Anxiety and How to Fight It
We fight anxieties by fighting against unbelief and fighting for faith in future grace.
The way you fight this “good fight” is by meditating on God’s assurances of future grace and by asking for the help of his Spirit.…The battle to be freed from sin is “by the Spirit” (Romans 15:16; 2 Thessalonians 2:13; 1 Peter 1:2) and by “the truth” (John 17:17, 19): the work of the Spirit... Continue Reading
Take a Nap, Eat a Snack, Get a Grip
Discouragement in ministry can seem overwhelming, but the biblical solution isn’t complicated.
Ministry discouragement has a way of shrinking our perspective until every criticism feels catastrophic and every hardship feels uniquely ours. What we usually need is recalibration. We need someone to lovingly remind us that the church belongs to Christ, not us, and that for all our striving, we were never asked to play the Savior.... Continue Reading
Consistency Is Not Enough
The important thing is to be consistent in the right and good things.
The struggle is normal. Perfection will only be experienced in Heaven. But there will still be benefits to enjoy here, when we work for positive change. Often you probably hear people talk about the need for consistency, how important it is, and the lack of it is their problem. Actually, everyone is consistent. The... Continue Reading
Clothe Yourselves with Humility (Part 3)
Entitlement is the opposite of humility.
Humility is the result of a radical awareness of God’s glory and greatness that fuels life lived for him. It’s the gospel applied and inhabited so that we think of ourselves less and of him more. What does it look like to put it on? Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may... Continue Reading
True Knowledge Leads to Worthy Walking
As Christians, we must live in a manner consistent with the Name that we have been given.
It’s a name that we’ve been given, not because we earned it, but because we were adopted into a family. It’s a name that defines who we are. And it’s a name we already have, not one we are trying to earn. It’s the name that is above every name, and the name at which... Continue Reading
Life Beyond the Algorithm: Timeless Meaning in an Age of Artificial Intelligence (Part 1)
Intelligence changes form, labor changes medium, creativity changes expression, but the fundamental question remains unresolved: What endures?
Even the noblest of work cannot preserve meaning under the sun. This critique dismantles the modern mythology of progress. Progress assumes that accumulation equals significance, that advancement produces value simply by virtue of expansion. Yet Solomon exposes the internal contradiction of this assumption: progress operates within time, but time erodes what progress produces. Without a Divine reference... Continue Reading
The Hollow Where the Larkspur Grew
I knew to watch for predators. Most of us do. But some things, like larkspur, do their greatest harm by presenting themselves as nourishment.
We’ve lost a horse to a lightning strike once. A predator got another animal years ago. We’ve had grizzlies on this property, plenty of mountain lions, and a couple of years ago I watched a wolf lope across a field one winter afternoon. Those are the dangers you think about out here. I wasn’t watching... Continue Reading
Humans 2.0: The Babels of Transgenderism and Transhumanism
Our warning light is on. Our language is more and more confused.
The Bible only acknowledges separation of body and soul at one point in life: death. In the end every Babelish expression of bending technology to our will is to escape the awful reality of that ultimate separation. Yet that won’t stop us trying for new Babels as newer and more integrated bricks and mortar become... Continue Reading
Virtue Signalling in the Church
I am seeking to commit my energies not to being seen to do good works, but to actually do them.
We should be careful that we are not merely ‘whitewashed tombs’, that appear godly and righteous to the church, but have hearts full of pomposity and pride (Matt 23:27). Such hearts are ripe for judgmentalism, devoid of grace, and empty of true virtue; underneath my signals of holiness is the assumption that I consider myself... Continue Reading
The Providence of Posterity: News from a Distant Land (Gen. 22:20–24)
Long before Abraham even realized that finding a suitable wife for Isaac was going to be a monumental problem, God had already provided the solution.
We naturally tend to focus on the “Mount Moriah” moments of our faith—the dramatic crises, the agonizing tests, the miraculous, last-second rescues. But Genesis 22 reminds us that the God who intervenes in the earthquake and the fire is also the God who works in the quiet, mundane, invisible details of family trees and distant... Continue Reading
30 Key Quotes on Sanctification
Important words on an important matter.
“The doctrine of justification by faith is one of the most majestic and comforting doctrines in the Scriptures, but it never appears alone in the life of the Christian. The work of progressive sanctification, a grace of equal beauty, always accompanies it.” Paul Washer The second half of Hebrews 12:14 says that “without holiness... Continue Reading
Feel-Good Evangelicalism and Our Problem of Biblical Illiteracy
CEO pastors who gloss over the Bible and doctrinal differences have proven to be a failed model for church life.
Too many American Christians have a bias against formal Bible translations, theological texts (such as old catechisms), and hymns. These were great crowning achievements of the Protestant world. Now they’re perceived as too stuffy and churchy, and we mock them or even imply that they send people to Hell, because people don’t find them “relatable”... Continue Reading
Why Was the Tabernacle So Intricate? (Exodus 25–31)
Exodus 25:8–9; Exodus 26:31–35.
The tabernacle texts show the Lord is not only a king who is holy but also a king who desires to be with his people. This is the very reason he gives for the building of the tabernacle: “Let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell in their midst ” (Ex. 25:8). As noted... Continue Reading
Biblical Fathering: On Being Forthright
Biblical fathers present Christ as the center of their lives.
God desires Christian fathers to be fair by taking the time to know, develop, and celebrate each child’s particular gifts, limitations, and personality. He desires us to demonstrate flexibility by listening carefully and then nurturing patiently while directing the child toward proper action. God wants us to be fathers who firmly correct by gently but... Continue Reading
Annihilationism: Celibate Gay Theology 2.0
Annihilationism and celibate gay theology are twin heresies and should be denounced as such.
Annihilationism dethrones Christ’s sufficiency to satisfy God’s wrath at the same time that it questions the integrity and goodness of God’s law. If, as annihilationists will eventually have to say, God’s wrath is harsh and unmerciful, then no one needs the blood of Christ to satisfy it. Annihilationists pose man as more merciful than God. ... Continue Reading
A Slippery Slope: Rio Grande Presbytery’s Suspension of a Serving Pastor
It appears to me that the suspension of TE Garris is just one more example of the “Cancel Culture” trend infecting the church.
Is such language to be no longer permitted when discussing serious matters with meaningful consequences? As all adults should know, the ability freely to engage in sometimes difficult discussions with one another—especially peers—is part-and-parcel for a society in which civil and religious liberties exist and thrive. The recent decision of the PCA’s Rio Grande... Continue Reading
Should Economic Equality Be the Goal of Christians?
God’s glory is shown by the breadth of diversity shown in his creation.
Rich and poor have this in common: The Lord is the Maker of them all (Prov 22:2). Nowhere does the moral demand of justice require economic equality. The very sense of justice that all humans have results from being created in God’s image. His nature is the source of all true understanding of justice. Yet,... Continue Reading