None of your actions bridge the gap between you and God. As “good” as they may be, they are not good the way God is good. You are not good the way God is good. The moment you weigh your merit by your productivity, the instant you compute your value by the number of good deeds done, you miss... Continue Reading

Reform Thought in Sixteenth-Century Italy is interesting in other ways to anyone who has an interest in the 16th century religious thought. If there was every an example of heterogeneous thought, it was in Italy at this time. A Reformation of the church was clearly needed, but opinions differed as on its nature and extent.  ... Continue Reading

In every age, Christians have had to carefully navigate their culture, to ensure that they are taking their cues not from the world around them, but from the Bible. In every age, Christian parents have been responsible to help their children separate culture lies from biblical truth. This is as true today as it has... Continue Reading

The distinctions of the seven churches of Revelation are set forth clearly in that book. They manifest different greatnesses and frailties, but they all faced perils. Each confronted the dangers that assaulted the church in the first century. They faced hazards of varying proportions, but there was a common threat to the health of the... Continue Reading

He was one of the most famous athletes of modern times and the Olympic glory of Scotland. He was also a Christian who refused to compete on Sunday and refused to compromise. Unquestionably, Eric Liddell was made to run. And yet, more than anything else, Eric Liddell believed that “God made me for China.”  ... Continue Reading

Given that the Regulative Principle of Worship (RPW) limits the elements of worship to those God has set out in Scripture, we should expect a significant degree of liturgical uniformity. The six, basic elements (i.e. the reading and preaching Scripture, prayer, singing praises, administering the sacraments, and lawful oaths) should be found in all of our services. Other things (i.e. unauthorized rituals, ceremonies, programs, gestures... Continue Reading

The utility and morality of orthodox Christian social beliefs can be debated. But according to Christian teaching, it is licit, perhaps even mandatory, to withdraw and walk away—“shake the dust off your feet”—rather than violate one’s conscience or become corrupted by the world.   We’ve all heard of the idea of a general worker’s strike.... Continue Reading

We have to ask the questions. And then we have to get to the place where we help people see that the things our culture claims to value most – human rights and tolerance and diversity – are insupportable without a coherent foundation. These cultural values would not exist without Christianity: they did not originate... Continue Reading

Today’s obsession with being relevant and being all things to all people isn’t so much the fruit of pragmatism (though it is that too) but more so the outcome of forgetting God.  We’ve forgotten the Immutable, Impassable, God only wise and so we’ve become convinced that God is OK with our neat tricks and new... Continue Reading

In an attempt to escape this fallen world, what if we instead find ourselves eternally stuck inside it? Since the time of Prometheus, the Greek demigod, or more recent stories of people stuck in a conscious coma, aware of everything around them but unable to move their mouths or bodies, the inability to die can become the... Continue Reading