Jesus: The True Vine
Jesus is the source of sustenance, power, wisdom, and strength in the Christian life.
Apart from Jesus, we don’t have the strength to live fruitful lives. Trying to live a God-honouring life without Christ is like a branch trying to bear fruit without being attached to the vine. It is impossible. If you are a member of God’s vine in Christ, rejoice at His kindness and goodness toward you. Abide... Continue Reading
Christian Teaching on Sex Should be More than “Don’t do It”
Where do young people get their information about sex from?
Love and sex are great gifts from God in the right setting. There is joy to be found in marriage and love. And this joy, these great gifts, are a pointer to a greater love, of Christ for his church. When we understand the power of the gifts of love and sex, we will understand... Continue Reading
I Believe in the Holy Spirit
The Spirit shines on the face of Christ; the Son leads us to the Father.
The Scriptures use a series of descriptions to identify the Spirit. He is the Spirit of glory, truth, holiness, sonship—and much more (Rom. 1:4; Rom. 8:15; 1 Peter 4:14; 1 John 4:6). We should notice particularly how our Lord Jesus introduces the Spirit in Jesus’ Farewell Discourse in John 13–17. In essence, Jesus tells His disciples that the Spirit will... Continue Reading
Book Review: Patient Ferment of the Early Church
Kreider’s work is well-researched, not surprising as he is a first-rate historian.
While Lactantius appealed to Constantine to honour the weak, deal with evil patiently, and promote religious liberty, Constantine was emphatic that he would be a Christian “on his own terms” (p.260). Constantine denounced paganism and embarked on a Christianisation of the law with heavy penalties on what he saw to be immoral practices. He saw... Continue Reading
Head of Every Head
How to Lead Like Jesus
Our Head makes provision and supply for the growth of his wife. As Head, he not only loved her at the cross with covenant-making allegiance, and loves her daily with ongoing concern, but he even loves her enough to take action for her growth, her improvement, her advance. Now we add a fresh kind of encouragement... Continue Reading
Why Should We Have Hope?
There’s only one place to find it when we desperately need it.
Hope is a person—Christ crucified and risen—and he is actualized in the life of the church through the Holy Spirit as she goes about her daily, routine business of preaching the gospel, baptizing, and serving communion. There we encounter life in the Christ who defeated death not be escaping from it but by coming through... Continue Reading
How Passion Primes the Case for Christianity
Are you living the kind of life that causes others to ask about your faith?
The best jurors are passionate, open-minded, and humble, and it’s important to understand these characteristics if we hope to have an impact as Christian Case Makers. If you’ve spent time thinking through the evidence and you think you are prepared to make a case for what you believe as a Christian, take an equally conscientious... Continue Reading
Seeking and Finding Satisfaction
A wise heart is a heart that is satisfied in God.
Why does Moses ask God for satisfaction? “That we may rejoice and be glad all our days.” Divine satisfaction brings joy externally (“rejoice”) and internally (“be glad”). It is a life of heavenly blessing, spiritual contentment, and complete fulfillment. Unfortunately, we look for satisfaction in the wrong places. But the futile and foolish things of... Continue Reading
How to Make Better, More Careful, More Persuasive Arguments
Two ways we can make our arguments more careful, and more persuasive.
It’s not that we can’t ever generalize, lump people into groups, or argue from specific examples to broader themes, but if we mean to indict a whole group, we must show that the indictment is largely true of the whole group. Otherwise, we are just signaling to our in-group that we are against the correct... Continue Reading
When “Justification by Faith Alone” Replaced the Kingdom of God
When justification by faith alone becomes more important than the kingdom itself, then we have a dysfunctional body.
Jesus came preaching the centrality of the kingdom, and not the centrality of worship, not the centrality of the sacraments, not the centrality of prayer, and not even the centrality of justification by faith alone. All these are critical parts but they must never become a substitute for the kingdom itself. I have three... Continue Reading
Be Filled with…Emotion?
The purpose of what we sing is to form our hearts, to shape our responses toward God.
The fact is that qualities like intensity, passion, enthusiasm, exhilaration, or euphoria are never described in Scripture as qualities to pursue or stimulate, they are never used to define the nature of spiritual maturity or the essence of worship, and they are never listed as what the Spirit produces in a believer’s life. First... Continue Reading
The Magdeburg Confession and Resistance Theory
An important early document on how Christians might deal with tyrants.
But its [the Magdeburg Confession] importance has stood the test of time. It especially came to the fore just a few years ago when the Covid reign of terror descended upon much of the world…As this globalist statism is likely to only get worse in the days ahead, returning to these older documents become more... Continue Reading
The Unity and Continuity of the Covenants
Throughout Scripture, one finds God working to gather a people to Himself through covenantal relationships.
Covenant is woven throughout Scripture. Why? Because in God’s covenantal work, He has been working to bring His people to Himself and He has made them His own. If you sat down and read the entire Bible from cover to cover, you would notice that one theme surfaces repeatedly: covenant. A covenant is a... Continue Reading
Climb a Mountain, Swim a Sea, Fight a Dragon
Grace is offensive.
Naaman did what so many of us did when we first heard of grace—we rejected it. But God did for Naaman what he did to so many of us—he pursued us and drew us back. He saved us and drew him in. He rescued us and drew him to himself. He did it all because... Continue Reading
Point to His Faithfulness
Because God is faithful, we can be secure.
Your faith may be small, but His faithfulness is great. Yes, your sin may be great, but His grace is greater. Our God is the faithful One, and may we continue to put our hope in Him. “I’m just not sure I’m saved.” He said this as he looked at me from across the... Continue Reading
Fake News: Complementarianism and Disinformation
Disinformation about complementarity is pasted on Twitter, promoted on Facebook, and spread via blog posts and magazine articles.
In our age of rapid, digital communication, “fake news” is as common as ever. As we’ve seen, disinformation regarding complementarianism abounds, whether those arguments are theological, historical, or moral. May we not be fooled by such claims. Rather, let us be like Bereans, testing to see if these things are so. Donald Trump made... Continue Reading
Elite Universities Are beyond Repair
When America’s most elite credentialing institutions have fallen, a bleak future is on the horizon.
America is waking up to the fact that most of American higher education is an enemy of American ideals. In a sane world, the government would establish a commission to study the ideological capture of institutions like a Columbia. But this is the constituency Democrats need to win elections, so that will never happen. ... Continue Reading
UPDATE: Assembly-Wide Panel Discussion Canceled
The PCA’s Administrative Committee announced today: “That the General Assembly Plenary Seminar, ‘Supporting Your Pastor and Church Leaders in a Polarized Political Year’ not be offered.”
The committee provided the following rationale for their decision: “The concerns that have been raised about the seminar and its topic have been so significant that it seems wisest for the peace and unity of the church not to proceed in this way. Instead, the seminar time will be allocated to a prayer convocation that... Continue Reading
The Echo of Easter
Easter echoes down through the years. He is risen. He is alive. He is powerful and present.
Jesus is very much alive and impressively powerful. If we think of the tour of the troubles in this world, what hope do we find in the many tombs of emperors and kings? None. But one tomb is empty, and death has been defeated – Jesus holds the keys of death and Hades! We all... Continue Reading
Classically Practical
Classical Christian Ed must lay claim to the new “job training”.
What does spending endless hours on Latin, Greek, Logic, Rhetoric, Jurisprudence, Physics, and Metaphysics result in? An elite capable of navigating the scientific, theological, and political milieu of early modern Europe. No wonder the educational system produced such polymaths—renaissance men—able to discourse on law as theologians, theology as lawyers and politicians, and politics as theologians.... Continue Reading
Countercultural Courage
One man’s quest to destroy false narratives and restore the black community to foundational truths.
Qualls decided in high school he didn’t want to become a casualty of a broken home. But it wasn’t until he started dating Sheila that he saw up-close the true blessings of an intact family. Qualls watched Sheila’s father—a former sergeant major in the Army—sit quietly in his chair reading the Bible, then work demanding rotating... Continue Reading
5 Things Science Cannot Explain (but Theism Can)
These features support theism and provide strong evidence against scientism.
The universe is precisely fine-tuned so that life could appear. More than a hundred independent, hard facts about the universe have been discovered in the form of basic constants of nature or arbitrary physical magnitudes which are, scientifically speaking, brute facts and for which there is no further scientific explanation (e.g., the force of gravity... Continue Reading
The Transgender Movement Is Collapsing in England after the Cass Review
The transgender movement conquered the U.K. overnight. It may lose England just as swiftly.
According to Maya Forstater, who was fired for opposing gender ideology, won a wrongful dismissal lawsuit, and founded the campaign organization Sex Matters, these coming changes are a “major step” towards walking back NHS England’s “capitulation to the demands of gender extremists, which has damaged policies and practices, created widespread confusion, and harmed patient care.” ... Continue Reading
How to Read the Bible in Context and Stay on Track
It is God’s word—his divine revelation to us and received by us through his instrument of human writers.
The unity is the gospel message of redemption we have through our Lord Jesus Christ, the suffering servant (Isa. 53, Matt. 8:17, John 12:38, Rom. 10:16, 1 Pet. 2:24, etc.) who lived, died, and was resurrected according to the Scriptures (1 Cor. 15:3, 4), and who poured out his Spirit to us at Pentecost (fulfilling... Continue Reading
God’s Blueprint for His Mission
Churches are to use the ordinary means of grace in the ingathering and upbuilding of saints.
If we are to do well at church planting, denominations, presbyteries, synods, or networks will be needed for spiritual, prayerful, and financial support. When Jerusalem was destroyed in AD 70, God’s plan continued to be revealed. Christians fled Judea. The temple could no longer be the focal point of assembly. The church was decentralized, and this... Continue Reading
Zwingli: Zealous Reformer, Faithful Pastor
Review: ‘Zwingli the pastor’ by Stephen Brett Eccher.
Zwingli the Pastor shows that pastors are as important today as they were in Zwingli’s time. The pastor has an essential role in times of crisis. As Eccher tells us, Zwingli preached powerful sermons to rally people to theological reform for the sake of gospel renewal. Some were so persuasive that his audience ascribed to... Continue Reading
Amaze the Next Generation with God
Reaching the next generation for God by showing them more of God. That’s just crazy enough to work.
As you try to reach the next generation for Christ, you can amaze them with your cleverness, your humor, or your looks. Or you can amaze them with God. I need a lot of things in my life. There are schedules and details and a long to-do list. I need food and water and shelter.... Continue Reading
The Mission of God as the Grounds of Church Planting
In one sense, the church’s mission is simply to claim the prize that the Lord Jesus has already won.
Having accomplished His mission, Christ has been awarded all authority in heaven and on earth. He has authority over all flesh to give eternal life to all whom the Father gave to Him (John 17:2). He will build His church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it (Matt. 16:18). The ordinary ministry of... Continue Reading
Lest Israel Should Glory against God
“But Lord, why should I get any credit at all for this? You’re the one who brought me to the end of myself; you’re the one who enabled me to see that it’s all about you; you’re the one who taught me how to worship!”
Beloveds, when we see our dear Christ like this—adorned with the many-colored coat of God’s own works—we will immediately see something else: the ugliness and futility of our sinful obsession with our own! Like the apostle we will therefore cry out, “God forbid that I should ever again boast in my own works, lest, in... Continue Reading
The Cult Following of the Omnicompetent Pastor
Pastors are not the Christ.
Something has gone terribly wrong when the people have come to view the pastor himself as the mediator between God and man, even if this would never be explicitly stated. This is precisely why the pulpit itself is to be a place of great self-denial. Paul’s preaching was most effective because of his humility in... Continue Reading