At heart we are not good people who occasionally happen to mistake into sin. No, at heart we are sinners, and it is this that explains why sin is attractive to us. We are not sinners because we sin; we sin because we are sinners. This does not fit well with our contemporary pursuit of... Continue Reading

Due to the rare discovery of jewelry, Gibson speculated that their excavation site could be one of those “great houses” mentioned specifically in Scripture. “This spot would have been at an ideal location, situated as it is close to the western summit of the city with a good view overlooking Solomon’s Temple and Mount Moriah to... Continue Reading

What our kids sit under is not just bad philosophy but watered down, to boot. It’s like the row of queens in The Magician’s Nephew who, as you walk the line from start to end, diminish by degree. Dumbed-down Derrida and Foucault is the worst.    You’re sending Johnny off to college and keeping your... Continue Reading

When we are critical of others, there is often something deeper going on below the surface in our own hearts. That deeper issue comes bubbling to the surface in our expressed opinions of others, and the more sanitized the criticism is the easier it is to hide behind it and not deal with what’s really... Continue Reading

It is God’s will that His children be made into the image of Christ, which often entails suffering of various kinds (Philippians 1:29). It is what the Bible calls sanctification (1 Thessalonians 4:7). God will employ whatever means necessary to mature us spiritually. And for that, I am grateful to Him.    On this, my... Continue Reading

The name “Theophilus” is well attested in the time period in which Luke wrote. It was a common name, over a few centuries, all over the Roman empire. Josephus even mentions a Jewish high priest with the name a few decades before the temple fell. So it’s highly credible to conclude that Luke was writing... Continue Reading

We often think being saved is something like this: We are floating in the sea of sin and death about to drown when, with our last bit of strength, we cry out to Jesus who throws us a life preserver. That’s certainly a situation from which we would need to be saved, but that’s not... Continue Reading

For Paul, suffering was not the result of sin. It was armor against sin. God knew that the humiliation of suffering was necessary to protect Paul against a form of self-aggrandizement to which he might otherwise have been tempted. Paul needed the kind of shield that only suffering could supply, and so God granted it... Continue Reading

For potential heroes to rise to the call they must have cultivated heroic virtues, such as courage. As C.S. Lewis once said, “Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means, at the point of highest reality.” Young people especially need to aspire to... Continue Reading

Owen addresses tricky questions that were prominent in his own context. For example, he uses his definition of schism to settle a dilemma: if a church member wants to leave a congregation, what should the congregation do?   Schism is a scary, serious word. We often think of a schismatic as someone who has caused... Continue Reading