I suppose the eclectic nature of thrift stores could be unsettling, even disorienting, for some people. After all, there’s no predictable supply, no reliable order, no telling what you’ll find or even what you’re looking at. Here, you might find a cut glass candy dish that looks exactly like the one your grandmother had, or... Continue Reading

Jesus shared the parable of the Good Samaritan in response to a Lawyer’s attempt to limit his responsibility to love all of his neighbours as himself. Jesus started the parable by explaining that a Jewish man was attacked and robbed as he traveled from Jerusalem to Jericho. The robbers took all of his belongings and... Continue Reading

There’s blood everywhere! Why? It seems so barbaric to us, so primitive and backwards. For the author of Hebrews, however, the bloodiness of the OT form of worship speaks volumes. It tells us something about ourselves that we don’t like to think about. Our world is constantly trying to convince us that “Baby, you’re a... Continue Reading

The devil is the father of lies (John 8:44) and the deceiver of nations (Revelation 20:3, 8). He “disguises himself as an angel of light” (2 Corinthians 11:14), and he will do whatever is in his power to get us to forget him altogether and to live as if he doesn’t exist. As believers, we know... Continue Reading

Men like William Carey and Andrew Fuller, and more modern writers like J.I. Packer in his Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God, have demonstrated repeatedly that the Reformed emphasis on particular redemption is the sweet companion of the missionary endeavor and not its antagonist. But in our day and age, for some observers, another sticky question... Continue Reading

If Lloyd-Jones is expansive and voluminous, Stott’s commentary is simple, stays on the line of Scripture, and is sermonically suggestive. That is, he clearly and simply breaks apart any given pericope according to how the text naturally falls apart, giving any would-be-preacher a quick but textually faithful sermon outline. It’s clear he is at once... Continue Reading

The first two verses of the psalm are an exhortation not to be envious of the wicked, “for they will soon fade like the grass.” Then verses 2–6 exhibit a pattern, as the reader is urged to love the Lord in various ways and he promises to respond and act. The parallel structure of these... Continue Reading

To today’s culture, tolerance is no longer the idea that wrong views, though wrong, nevertheless have the right to exist and to be heard in public discourse. Now, you’re only tolerant if you believe that no position is any more or less true, right, or valid than any other view.   “For you, being so... Continue Reading

The difficulty with any intellectual binary is its capacity to mask complexity, to hide nuance, and depth of meaning, and even to obscure bigger issues which may be hiding behind the hysterics of whose camp a cultural object belongs to. This is almost certainly the case with Gillette’s latest campaign. Unless we understand that this... Continue Reading

The Remonstrants rejected the Augustinian/Reformed view of the consequences of the fall. For the Remonstrants, denied that original sin, of itself, is sufficient to condemn humanity. We might call them semi-Pelagian, insofar as they formally conceded that we fell into sin with Adam but Synod called them Pelagians repeatedly, in part, because they downplayed the effects of... Continue Reading