The idea of offering up yourself as a living sacrifice, as Paul describes it, is the same point that Jesus made in his quotation of the Shema. God demands everything. In order to worship God as supreme (as Romans 12:1 says—spiritual worship) involves the proper engagement of heart, soul, mind, and strength. In other words,... Continue Reading

God’s infinite love for His own image within human beings and His infinite hatred of sin in them means He cannot grow in love or hatred towards humans. Thus is not to suggest that God’s love does not truly respond to human behaviour. Instead, the trajectory of sinners towards sin or away from it drives... Continue Reading

Watching my mother alter from her strong, vibrant shape into a skeletal, weakened slip of herself was wrenchingly, stabbingly difficult. But seeing her strength despite great pain, watching her reach for hope and help, feeling connection even when she could no longer speak: these were among the gifts of her dying. Her dying changed me... Continue Reading

Small ball is ordinary but it is basic. Regular time in prayer. Time and patience devoted to sermon preparation. Plotting and planning for ways to enfold the sheep in the work. Time spent with people, inside and outside the church family. The list is long and it isn’t flashy. But God uses it.   “I... Continue Reading

There is no time in human history when you were more perfectly represented than in the Garden of Eden because your representative was chosen infallibly by a perfectly holy, perfectly just, omniscient God. So I cannot say that I would have done differently than Adam did.   I think the New Testament does teach that... Continue Reading

I love and have been instructed by A Christmas Carol because of the way Dickens condenses down to its essence the whole grand progress from sin to salvation, selfishness to compassion, despair to hope, imprisonment to freedom: the accomplishments of a lifetime turned, like Shakespeare’s Henry V, into an hour glass.   Let me begin... Continue Reading

It pays to hold your nerve when the rest of the culture is losing theirs. Not just for your own sake. But for the sake of those who risk becoming a byword for the (hopefully) brief period of madness that overlook a declining Western culture at the start of the 21st century.   It pays... Continue Reading

Man’s fall into sin brings bad news, but the gospel announces good news. While Adam and Eve failed under temptation, Jesus endured and overcame temptation (Matt. 4:1–11). Though we have misery through Adam, we have life through Christ. This lesson paves the way for examining sin and its effects and for seeing the majesty of... Continue Reading

Since the Book of Revelation speaks of all sorts of fiery trials or events, it is worth pausing to see how John (and Jesus) speak of tribulation in Revelations 1–3 to get a sense of what the word means. (I will leave the question of tribulational timing for another time.)   The word tribulation has... Continue Reading

While a distinction between sinner and sin is a handy one for protecting the individual from God’s hatred, it simply cannot bear up under the weight of Scriptural evidence which has God showing hatred, or wrath, resting on individuals. Jesus condemns people as workers of iniquity (Lk 13:27), and will take personal vengeance on those... Continue Reading