“I hope the book is widely read by pastors, academics, and thoughtful lay people, who have — or wish they had — a compelling and reliable vision for God’s new global work in our time. So what I am trying to do here is give a glimpse into Noll’s three passions and the foil of... Continue Reading

“Spiritual depression is real and can be acute. We ask how a person of faith could experience such spiritual lows, but whatever provokes it does not take away from its reality. Our faith is not a constant action. It is mobile. It vacillates. We move from faith to faith, and in between we may have... Continue Reading

“As a multi-racial, African-American New Testament scholar teaching in a core theological discipline in the oldest school (the school of theology) at the flagship and once segregated Southern Seminary, I am regularly moved with emotion and deep gratitude to my great God, the Father, and my Lord, Jesus Christ, when I think that there was... Continue Reading

“So how do we respond? Well, the temptations abound, and the natural responses are, well, natural. We can become bitter, self-consumed, tired, discouraged, or even depressed. All of these things will naturally happen when we find ourselves inwardly focused and dressed with thin skin. But is this God-honoring? Is this biblically right?”   It is... Continue Reading

“Some have advocated that, since we do not believe that Christ went to the place of the dead, we should remove that clause from the creed. Others have defended retaining it.6 Calvin and the Reformed have retained the clause but have understood it to refer to Christ’s sufferings. We should explain that the original sense... Continue Reading

“Bell caused a stir in 2013 among some Christians when he declared that he was “for marriage … for fidelity … for love, whether it’s a man and a woman, a woman and a woman, a man and a man.” Years prior, after he published Love Wins in 2011, Bell fell out of favor with some prominent... Continue Reading

“Why oh why, as Richard Gamble asked, do American Christians allow the Bible to be so used and abused? Could it be that quoting the Bible is like hearing the furnace kick on, like just so much background noise? Judging by reactions to Obama’s speech, his “thus, sayeth the Lord” solved nothing.”   If you... Continue Reading

“The church has the advantage of story.  God gives us his truth largely in the midst of story –stories filled with anti-heroes and moral ugliness wherein even those who wear the white hats have very fatal flaws.  This is the story of grace.  If there is a quest for redemption that is shown in the... Continue Reading

“I have noticed that many people speak of depravity in terms of what we do. In explaining depravity of man they talk of homosexuality, murder, slander, etc. I don’t think this is helpful. Instead of speaking first of what we do we should instead speak of who we are. We are depraved, therefore we do... Continue Reading

“In Why Not Same-Sex Marriage: A Manual for Defending Marriage Against Radical Deconstruction, Daniel Heimbach attempts to break through the barriers to communication by carefully examining arguments for SSM and posing reasoned objections to them. His goal is to “convince the undecided of the social necessity of keeping the nature, meaning, and structure of civil marriage... Continue Reading