Astronauts, Riots, and Pandemics: 2020 vs. 1969
The world is on fire in 2020. It was in 1969 as well. It’s easy to focus on the negative. And we should rightly call out injustice. But we should also pause to reflect on what is good. In July 1969, three American astronauts landed on the moon. It wasn’t just a great technical... Continue Reading
Doing Wrong Is Never Right
Wrong is wrong.
The end is not greater than the means. Personal feelings are not greater than God’s standards. Pragmatism fails us as individuals, institutions, and as humanity. Let’s be unequivocal. Doing wrong is never right. Two wrongs do not make a right. The ends do not justify the means. Grateful for the Peaceful Protests I’m glad... Continue Reading
God Made Us to Gather
The Fresh Wonder of Corporate Worship
Throughout the centuries, churches have in various seasons been unable to meet due to persecution, geography, pandemics, or other limitations. God wasn’t worried then, and he’s not worried now. His plans will not be thwarted or undone. Because God made the church to gather. Only God could have ordained that I would be writing... Continue Reading
In Light of Our Present Distress, What Do We Need Most?
There is hope for you and me—contrition, confession, and then restoration. Seek God for it.
The glory of the gospel is this—when we as believers sin, whether it be racism, adultery, lying, or stealing, and when the Holy Spirit convicts us of sin, when He enables us to have true, heartfelt contrition, then we will bring forth fruits of repentance, namely a change in behavior. God then promises to bring... Continue Reading
The Nature of the Surprise
The disciples really didn't understand.
Why were the disciples surprised? They were surprised because they had a veil over their eyes that was suddenly and unpleasantly ripped away. Matthew 26 is not telling us that the Old Testament is inherently Christless. It is telling us that the disciples did not understand. There is no doubt that the disciples were... Continue Reading
Defeating Despair
What can you do when you start despairing, when hope seems so elusive?
You feel a sense of hopelessness overtaking you and, like a tire with a slow leak, you get a little lower every day. Whatever you might call it, you sense that you’re losing hope; the world is grey, you have a hard time enjoying life, you just can’t seem to get motivated. We’ve been... Continue Reading
Getting Prayer to Stick (1 of 2)
How can we make praying stick? Let me suggest four things to help.
We’ve told ourselves that if Jesus needed to pray then certainly we need to pray. Paul’s letters overflow with prayer. We’ve read them and are convicted to pray. When we have devoted ourselves to pray we have emerged from the time energized. But it doesn’t stick. We return to our routine of dabbling in prayer.... Continue Reading
Jonathan Edwards & Smallpox
Lessons from Edwards’s Fatal Experiment
Number nine of Edwards’s famous resolutions says this, “Resolved, to think much on all occasions of my own dying, and of the common circumstances which attend death.”[2] Puritans have often been criticized by their constant talk of death. This apparent morbidity was fueled by their view of themselves as pilgrims towards a better city. Edwards... Continue Reading
God’s Answer to Human Suffering
The Cross of Christ and Problem of Pain
The cross appeared to reveal Roman might and Jesus’s weakness, yet paradoxically Christ conquered in seeming defeat, he completed his mission in apparent loss, he saved his people when it looked like he couldn’t save himself.7 This is the cruciform power and wisdom of God that turns conventional wisdom on its head and offers true... Continue Reading
Steven Pinker and WaPo are Wrong. Belief in Heaven Isn’t a COVID Death Wish.
We are all too familiar with the hackneyed charge that thoughts of heaven are delusional. But according to Steven Pinker, they're malignantly so. That’s a new twist.
Essentially, believing in heaven makes those evangelicals impatient with life, eager for death. If you’re inclined to judge this reasoning as dumb on stilts, remember really smart people said it. They are right. You are wrong. Regardless, there is a spectacular demonstration of ignorance at work here. There should be an algebraic equation to... Continue Reading
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