“I’ll gladly cede to Dr. Trueman’s historical expertise at this point, but it seems Luther’s ecumenical style was a bit more bullish, and far less concessive than Calvin’s. Calvin thought Luther a great man, a latter-day apostle even. But Calvin (and a decent number of other Reformers) did not seem to follow him as a... Continue Reading

Take, for example, a “news report” about a new $90 million, 170-acre church complex with a petting zoo, seven bookstores, nine coffee shops, three restaurants, a baseball field and a monorail to the parking lots. But church leaders forgot something. Thus the headline: “Sanctuary Mistakenly Omitted From Megachurch Campus Design.”   Anyone who visits a... Continue Reading

“Christianity grows best under hardship. There are more Christians in China today, for instance, where free expression of faith is illegal, than the total population of the United States. Christianity is in decline in America, and Christendom is already in ruins in Europe, but in the East and in Africa, where it is new, a... Continue Reading

“If you’ve been called to ministry, it’s not because God needed you on his team. It’s because he delights in you and wanted you in his family. When we get our minds around this monumental truth, it allows us to quit trying to be impressive. God isn’t impressed with us, and we shouldn’t be either.”... Continue Reading

“Spiritual pride is a destructive force within the church.  This force is most devastating when it finds its way into the heart and actions of the spiritual leaders in a church.  The solution, of course, is humility.”   “If the Lord were to honor me any more, he would make me the janitor.” With those... Continue Reading

“According to Fortune, Facebook removed the photograph after a Norwegian newspaper editor posted it as part of a series of war-themed images. When the editor attempted to re-post the photo, his account was suspended, and an international furor followed.”   The recent skirmish over Facebook’s removal of a harrowing image—the Pulitzer Prize-winning, 1972 photograph of... Continue Reading

“A steward in the ancient world was a person who was given the responsibility and authority to rule over the affairs of the household. For example, the patriarch Joseph became a steward over Potiphar’s household: he managed everything in the household and was given the authority to rule over the house (Gen. 39:1–6a).”   The... Continue Reading

“For King, forgiveness has not come easy. Some parents have mourned the death of their daughters. Others have seen their daughters fully heal. His daughter survived, but he also lost her. Every day, he fights back his anger. Every day, he has to forgive again.”   A single word in black cursive font hangs above... Continue Reading

“The truth is: The priorities and concerns of American evangelicalism have a highly tenuous and ambiguous relationship to those we find embodied in the confessions and catechisms of the Reformation and exemplified in the attitudes and actions of the Reformers.”   October is the month of the year in which, as a Reformation specialist, I... Continue Reading

“Epistemological modesty sounds so compelling, so humble, so godly. After all, which of us wants to claim we have the corner on truth? How can we really know we are right and someone else is wrong? Though such “humility” seems so right on the surface, a quicksand foundation lies beneath it.”   Every society has... Continue Reading