God doesn’t guarantee me understanding of everything that will happen in my life. And that can be a source of great anxiety. I stress about what I can’t control and lose sleep over what I can’t change. But as Paul so helpfully reminds us, with prayer and thanksgiving, we can find peace.    A New... Continue Reading

What people typically mean when they say that Calvinism is “rigid” is that the Calvinists teach that God is sovereign in creation and salvation, that just as he spoke into nothing and created all that is, so too he freely, sovereignly, and graciously saves his elect, those whom he determined from all eternity to save.... Continue Reading

There is tremendous benefit in learning from someone who has been there and done that. But we don’t need such people. And it’s not like they are not qualified to teach or lead or counsel because of the experiences they’ve gone through. Their experience is valuable to us only to the degree that it is consistent with... Continue Reading

These new challenges actually raise three questions we must consider. The first concerns how this affects us personally. Are we subtly influenced by all of this moral decay? To ask this another way: Have we moved the line because culture is trying to erase the line?”   At the turn of the twentieth century, the sciences... Continue Reading

Many people embrace the old adage that “a person with an experience is never at the mercy of a person with an argument.” Ultimately, we have to disagree with this assertion, but not because experience is not a valuable tutor. It can help us connect theory to practice and abstract concepts to concrete situations. It... Continue Reading

If we know the Savior’s care for us, and if we believe that he will give grace for every need, then we will rest in the arms of the one who carries us even to our old age (Isaiah 46:3–4). The grace of God enables us to age gracefully. The gospel empowers us to face... Continue Reading

When I say intuition, I mean something very particular. I don’t mean a hunch. I don’t mean a line of reasoning to a conclusion or a skill learned over time—like the way a seasoned batter “senses” where the next pitch will come. In fact, intuitions are not learned at all. They are something we’re born with, information... Continue Reading

Christ is the light of life and through his work of redemption, he defeated death. The gospel (good news) is the announcement of the reverse of the curse of Adam. The degeneration of Adam’s curse is overcome by the regeneration of life through Jesus Christ. The gospel denounces sin in the death of Christ and it... Continue Reading

Over and over again in his disputes with the Pharisees and the Sadducees, Jesus appealed to the Scriptures in order to refute his opponents. One classic text is his debate with the Sadducees over whether there is marriage at the time of the Resurrection or not. They posed a “gotcha” question in order to trap... Continue Reading

It is in light of these verses and others like them that the Reformed churches confess, in Heidelberg Catechism 60, “I have grievously sinned against all the commandments of God, and have never kept any of them, and am still prone always to all evil…”. There is much speculation about Paul’s “thorn in the flesh” (2 Cor... Continue Reading