Promise: The Good Shepherd Promises to Always Provide for You through Affliction
God prepares your table in advance.
Christ keeps His sheep rotating through different areas of sanctification, assuring us, I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly (John 10:10). Yet Phillip Keller notes that shepherds also take the sheep into deep wells of dark caverns for water: “Many of the places we may be led into will appear to... Continue Reading
God of Ages Past
The Awakening We Need Today
Spurgeon kept the baptismal pool filled — even when no baptisms were scheduled (81). His people would always have the mission set before them. May our pools be figuratively filled with importunate prayers, compassionate tears, and joyful proclamations of the excellencies of our glorious Christ. May we be fully awake, fully alive, sowing much. And... Continue Reading
The Old Testament is Christian Scripture
Embracing sixty-six books for your discipleship.
The Old Testament is relevant for the Christian life because it is Christian Scripture. We are children of Abraham by faith, so the earlier covenants and redemptive acts of God are part of our history. We need the warnings and exhortations of the Old Testament. We need its songs and proverbs. We need to know... Continue Reading
A Letter to the Bereaved Parent
God is always Good, even when we do not see it.
It will not always be winter, though it may be a long and dark winter. On that final Day, “the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings” (Malachi 4:2). In the meantime, you must meditate on the goodness of God, even when we do not see it. I do not know why... Continue Reading
3 Things You Should Know about Matthew‘s Gospel
Matthew tells us that Jesus is the son of Abraham, by which he means not merely that Jesus is a descendant of Abraham, but that He is the promised seed of Abraham, the One in whom all the nations of the earth would be blessed (Gen. 22:18; 26:4). This “all nations” reach of the salvation... Continue Reading
Husbands, Likewise
Christ must be the center of the heart and the home.
Paul, in speaking of the authority structure of the home, says that husbands are to love their wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her. Husbands are to serve their wives in the model of Christ. To borrow from what Peter will later say about elders, husbands are to exercise shepherding care... Continue Reading
You Need to Know Jesus to Understand the Bible: The Clarity of Scripture Part 5
The Son of God lights the Word of God.
If you do not read the Bible with the ultimate goal of seeing the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, you don’t understand Scripture. We need to see Christ’s glory through his illumining power to truly appreciate why his Word is and what his Word does. Without illumination, Scripture is a textbook... Continue Reading
Two Ways We Argue with God
False humility is always at one of two extremes. It is either lower than God would have it, or it is higher than God can tolerate.
False humility goes lower than God allows when it treats it as a faux pas to put little things into God’s hand. Many think it would be injudicious for them at such a time as this to ask God to heal their sore head which incapacitates them from hearing the preaching, or to help their... Continue Reading
Our Response to Suffering is a Powerful Teacher
Suffering with Patience Opens a Door
Our faith and obedience in the midst of suffering matters—a lot! It matters not just in regards to our own relationship with God, but because both unbelievers and fellow saints look on. When we respond in faith, as Mike did, we shine the light of the Gospel brightly. When we endure well in God’s grace,... Continue Reading
4 Ways to Show Your Love for the Lord
What does it practically look like to love the Lord and how can we grow in that love?
My prayer is that as Christians we would grow in that love as we go about our daily lives learning to be satisfied in the situations that God has placed us in, reading and trusting in God’s Word and promises, obeying His commands as a sign of our faith and always thanking Him for the... Continue Reading
Brokenness is His Speciality
Yes we are all broken, but we have a God who specialises in dealing with this.
I need to be reminded afresh of a gentle, tender Lord who wants to heal our wounds and deal with our hurts. And because he has shed his own tears as the perfect God-Man, he is well placed to wipe our tears as well. Our God specialises in mending the brokenhearted and restoring the prodigal.... Continue Reading
Christ or Chords? The Manipulated Emotionalism of Hillsong, Asbury, and Pentecostalized Evangelical Worship
Musically Manufactured Emotion is No Work of God
True religion does consist in the religious affections, and music is a wonderful gift from God that helps to give expression to the affections created by the Spirit through his Word. But we must be careful to define spiritual affections biblically and put music in its proper place. Otherwise, we risk worshiping chords instead of Christ.... Continue Reading
How the Divine Armor of the Messiah Becomes Ours
The different elements of the “panoply of God.”
One temptation we have in our examination of the armor of God is to get wrapped up in the armor itself and not in the one who gives it to us. As noted, this armor is the Lord’s own which he wore to defeat all his and our enemies in his great conquest of sin... Continue Reading
How Does the Bible Talk about Sin?
Sin’s most basic feature is that it puts human beings at odds with God and His good design.
One of the strategies of the Evil One is to try and convince us that sin is no big deal. He wants to convince us that “sin” is just a handful of harmless things that prudish church people don’t like. He says, “Nobody knows. Nobody sees. And even if they do, it doesn’t matter, because... Continue Reading
The Christian’s Justification
How the Gift and Grant of Faith is Our Eternal Hope
If your faith is in your good deeds, the idea that being a “good person” is enough to get you into heaven, than that faith is worthless. It has no power, nor worth, to gain you entrance into the celestial kingdom. True saving faith will show itself in the obedience the redeemed give to the revealed testimony... Continue Reading
You Would not Believe if Told | Habakkuk 1:5
Habakkuk received this word with fear and trembling.
Just as God predicted, Habakkuk could not believe his ears. Yes, Israel was sinful, but they were still God’s people. How could God use such wicked tools to punish His people, the very people that He redeemed out of Egypt? This revelation from God must have hit Habakkuk like a battering ram to the chest. Habakkuk... Continue Reading
Living Selflessly with Your Wife
God’s Word makes it clear that it is the responsibility of every husband to live with his wife in an understanding way.
A godly husband enjoys the freedom and intimacy of the marriage relationship and relishes his wife as his dearest companion and closest friend. Though any marriage is at times difficult and though any relationship will at times demand effort and require work, he is committed to enjoying his wife and delighting in the unique joys... Continue Reading
Biblical Worldview: Economics — Part 1
What does the Bible actually say about wealth, poverty, and economic inequality?
For the Christian, there are additional factors regarding wealth in the fallen world. Christians are called to be stewards of their labor and money and to use them for God’s kingdom. They do this by first providing for themselves and their loved ones (1 Tim. 5:8; 2 Thess. 3:10-12) and also caring for those who... Continue Reading
Nigeria is the Deadliest Country for Christians
Northern Nigeria’s blasphemy laws violate international human rights and they’re inconsistent with all Nigerian’s constitutional right to religious freedom.
Yahaya Sharif-Aminu is a singer-songwriter in his early 20s. He’s a Sufi Muslim, making him a religious minority in northern Nigeria’s mostly Sunni population. He shared some of his songs in a WhatsApp group in 2020. Some of the members in the WhatsApp group, however, accused Yahaya of committing “blasphemy” against the “prophet” Muhammad. Soon... Continue Reading
Prosper of Aquitaine and His Defense of God’s Grace
Letting God decide the future of each soul freed Prosper to preach to others without wondering whether or not they were of the elect. He was in fact one of the first Christian voices to speak of bringing Christ outside the Roman Empire, and his De vocatione omnium gentium (“The Call of All Nations”), was... Continue Reading
Faith Which Works is in Christ Alone
Justifying Faith is Lively Love in a Living God
True justifying faith will always be accompanied with good works, or fruit which comes from it. There is a natural change to the being as the image of God is restored that moves the justified to seek to be sanctified. However, we are never to confuse the graces which are born out of faith for faith... Continue Reading
The Peculiar Glory of Unexpected Discoveries
Three tools to chip away the veneer of strength we think we have in order for people to discover the glory of God in an unremarkable and unexpected place.
If we continue to live out our faith in carefully selected screen grabs, presented with post production filters that only show our ‘good side’, we may think that the charade is somehow advancing the gospel—but it’s not. We need to remove the distance. We need to show people the full frame. Living life up close... Continue Reading
How the False Promises of the Sexual Revolution Created a New Religion
Identitarianism: The New Religion
Mary Eberstadt’s new book, “Adam and Eve After the Pill, Revisited,” agues, not only has the sexual revolution been disastrous for American society, politics, and churches, but it has become a simulacrum of a religion, with its own dogmas, creeds, and saints. One of the most arresting substories of Eberstadt’s book is how the sexual... Continue Reading
A Tale of Two Student Protests
What Judge Duncan experienced at Stanford, while disgusting, is no innovation.
The difference between my protesters and those berating Judge Duncan is this: Mine had not lost sight of the fact that they and I both share a common humanity. Nor had they lost sight of the purpose of public discourse: to persuade opponents to change their views for the better, not to terrify them into... Continue Reading
Confessions and Worship
Historic creeds and confessions assist the church in carrying out four principal responsibilities.
When Christians publicly confess the truths that the church has always confessed, God is distinguishing between the church and the world—as well as between true and false churches. Historic doctrinal standards help draw a sharp line between orthodox teaching and false teaching in the articulation of “the faith that was once for all delivered to... Continue Reading
The Second Life of a Christian College in Manhattan Nears Its End
The King’s College, which draws students from around the country to Manhattan, has not been able to recover from enrollment and financial losses.
The King’s College is a small school. But as the city’s only high-profile evangelical college committed to “the truths of Christianity and a biblical worldview,” it is more well known than its enrollment numbers — over 600 students before the pandemic, down to roughly half that now — might suggest. Its sudden decline has drawn... Continue Reading
Heroes, Villains, and Conversation Partners: A Call to Rethink Church History
We ought to approach church history from the explicit goal of trying to cultivate virtue. And that means history must have heroes and villains.
Three cheers for all those who approach church history looking for heroes and villains. May the tribe of passionately subjective historians increase, may their efforts always spur us on to love and good works (Heb. 10:25). Similarly, three cheers for all those who know the value of historically diverse conversation partners. May we all long... Continue Reading
The Undeniable Importance of Fathers, For Now and Eternity
As it turns out, the consequences of fatherlessness are not only temporal, but eternal.
Of course, no earthly father can represent God perfectly. We mess up, and when we do, we must ask forgiveness from God and from our children. It is also important to note that God promises to be a father for the fatherless. If your dad failed you, know that there’s a Father who will never forsake you, Who redeems... Continue Reading
5 Misconceptions about Wealth
The struggle for many Christians is that our thinking about wealth is often shaped by influences outside the Bible.
Some people have no wealth because they’ve devoured it for selfish ends (Prov 21:20). But when a person wisely sees their wealth as not “mine” but the Lord’s, there is a strong motivation to collect more of it and put it to good use in service of others. The Bible does not lay a guilt... Continue Reading
God Will Not Reject His People
3 simple effects that this wonderful promise of God should have.
Theological systems that reject the eternal security of the believer find motivation for outward deeds in earning or keeping one’s salvation. Lives are spent doing good deeds in hopes that they can merit the favor of God. But for those whose confidence rests in God’s saving power alone, we go forth serving Christ with joy... Continue Reading