The impact of consumerism is one reason why church sessions and elder boards often spend more time than is decent on discussions about worship and programs. Someone will make the point that certain young people have left because the worship is not to their liking and thus the church needs to rethink how it does... Continue Reading

Familiarity of the tender variety persists in reminding you of the gospel and deepening your communion with Christ. But if you’re not careful, cold-hearted familiarity will betray you with kisses, poison your wineglass, and watch impassively while your life slips steadily away. You might not even realize it’s happening. Unexamined familiarity will prevent you from... Continue Reading

The good news of Jesus Christ—who he is and what he accomplished by his death, resurrection, and exaltation—is simply incoherent unless certain structures are already in place. You cannot make heads or tails of the real Jesus unless you have categories for the personal/transcendent God of the Bible; the nature of human beings made in... Continue Reading

“Freedom and political power are not antithetical realities in the fallen world. Ellul seems not to recognize that there can be no freedom without justice and that in a fallen world there can be no justice without power. He seems not to understand that while freedom is in most cases a desirable political condition, anarchism... Continue Reading

If ‘Defenders of the West’ is our new, Christian ‘Plutarch’s Lives’, then let us recognize the truth of our ancestors’ greatness, and piety and let us validate their sacrifices and imitate them. The Crusades were good and right. The myths have been rewritten with our people as the villains because the powers of the air... Continue Reading

I find it very moving to see how Newton never gave up on Cowper spiritually but encircled his friend’s mental illness within a larger faith perspective. It was like he held on for him. In 1780, Newton wrote from London to his friend, “How strange that your judgement should be so clouded in one point... Continue Reading

While many presbyteries will grant an exception to the Westminster Standards to a man who believes worldly recreations are permissible on the Sabbath, are presbyteries granting exceptions also for worldly entertainment and commerce on the Sabbath? And are candidates and officers in the PCA stating the full extent of their differences? A difference with the “recreations clause”... Continue Reading

Why can’t churches be working to identify people whom they believe would be highly effective pastors – using whatever criteria they think is most Biblical and appropriate – and encouraging those people to go into ministry? There’s a lot of opportunity in local churches to do a stealth vetting of these folks before tapping them... Continue Reading

Jews often associated with Gentiles, especially in Antioch (Josephus, Jewish War 2.45, 463). Cephas, however, seems to have started to “live like a Gentile” (Gal. 2:14), probably in the sense that he had ceased to observe Jewish dietary restrictions. In response to a heavenly vision (Acts 10:9–16; 11:4–10), he had tossed out an important Jewish... Continue Reading

If there is no one to endow human rights, how can everyone be expected to honor them? There remains widespread agreement that genocide, terrorism, and slavery are wrong, but by what authority will we continue to agree? Glenn Scrivener offered the best answer to these questions. “Rights indeed belong to all,” he says, “—that’s the... Continue Reading