We know that all people (believers or not) are part of a creation that is groaning under the weight of a fallen world. This includes broken bodies, minds and all disease and illness. The weight of the fallen world has been excruciatingly painful as I’ve watched Calvin succumb to the intensity of brokenness within his... Continue Reading

Christ did not go to the cross to atone for your sin and bring you forgiveness to leave you to yourself to see if you could hack it. He called you, and He will keep you. Even when He sends His rod of correction, it is His love that is dealing with you, not His... Continue Reading

For every follower of Jesus, there was a time when he went from interesting to stunning, from intriguing to mouth-stopping, from inspiring to everything — from great man to God himself. When we fed on his word those first few weeks, we ate like we had never had a real meal. When we drank the... Continue Reading

If you still feel pure – go to Psalm 51 – sinners by nature and practice steeped and shaped in iniquity. Pause on Romans 3:23 so see if you fall short. Look to the Sermon on the Mount: what do you find there? Meek and making peace, uncompromising in persecution, an angry murderous word –... Continue Reading

God wanted Gideon, Israel, Midian, and the entire world to know one thing:  that He doesn’t need human beings to accomplish His mission. Perhaps we need to be reminded of this. Too many times we work in our own strength, thinking that we can fix problems we are facing on our own. We rarely consult the Lord... Continue Reading

Rutherford’s letters, and there were over 360 of them, have been described in glowing terms by readers who have benefitted from them over this span of time. When they were first written they were for the personal reading by the recipients, but in many ways they are timeless and open for all. The popular book... Continue Reading

Pike is best known for the divisions he sowed into the Episcopal Church by injecting heresy. He seemed to invest his entire clerical career into remaking that church (and other churches) in his own image. His fiery sermons in the 1950s and ’60s increasingly accused the church of hypocrisy and attacked her central doctrines, including... Continue Reading

The Christian sexual ethic, it should be obvious, was radically different from mainstream Roman culture. Even the more “conservative” Stoics should not be seen as precursors to Christian morality. While some of the language may be the same (e.g., contrary to nature), the ideas, the values, and the reasons for Stoic ethics and Christian ethics... Continue Reading

If you read the first twenty verses of this story in Mark 5 of the New American Standard Bible you would get the impression that the demoniac (v. 7), the demons (v. 12), the townspeople (v. 17) and the healed demoniac (v. 18) were all imploring Jesus for something. However, the Greek word used in verses... Continue Reading

Because of man’s natural condition since the fall, we need a sinless descendant of Adam to keep the demands of the law for us. Jesus Christ, the last Adam, the God-man, does this by living a sinless life—keeping all the precepts of the law of God perfectly for us. Jesus kept the legal conditions of the covenant... Continue Reading