Live Like You’ll Live Forever
How would the world change overnight if all people everywhere heard that man had cured death?
We must awake to the coming world without end. We are those who look “not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:18). People all around us live and die for the seen,... Continue Reading
Jesus’ Concept of the Law in the New Testament
Interpreting the artifacts of past cultures requires alertness to their original context—as well as caution against imported assumptions.
To understand the function of Torah in its Old Testament context is to discover the basis for its New Testament reception by the followers of Jesus. The Apostles saw the person of Jesus in the Law (Matt. 22:37–40). And when Christians understand the Law in its ancient Near Eastern context, it continues to be a... Continue Reading
The Century that Banished God
It is not accidental that a century which sought to banish God also saw the callous destruction of human life, a precipitous decline of Western culture, and a culminating (and continuing) rebellion against historic moral standards.
Many among the secular ruling elites (even at the local level) cannot begin to grasp or even imagine that some of their fellow-citizens would base their actions upon theological considerations or upon high ethical principle. This is inconceivable to them and will lead them to conclude that these poor (Christian) people are either ignorant or... Continue Reading
Fiery Snakes, Earthquakes, and Talking Donkeys
We often take God’s care and provision not just for granted, but as something onerous and burdensome.
If ever one could have, should have, grumbled, if ever one got what he did not deserve, it was our Lord, Jesus Christ. But while we whine in the face of God’s blessings, he was silent in the face of God’s cursing. “God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, so... Continue Reading
“Make it a Christian Town”: The Ultra-Conservative Church on the Rise in Idaho
Increased influence of Christ Church, whose leader wants to create US "theocracy", comes as social conservatives aim to gain traction.
The church is increasingly drawing people to the area who are attracted to the idea of northern Idaho as a conservative “redoubt” against American modernity, and by the church’s “reconstructionist” position, which holds that the world will need to be governed according to their interpretation of biblical morality before Christ returns to earth. A... Continue Reading
Some Personal Reflections on the Protestant Reformation
The Reformation is fundamentally about the recovery of the biblical gospel of God.
I believe it to be no disservice to the memory and legacy of Lemuel Haynes to say that the words of W. H. Morse are applicable also in describing what the Reformation accomplished—and is still accomplishing—in that it “revealed the Lord” to many from whom he had beforehand been hidden because of heretical teachings. But praise be... Continue Reading
Luther’s Advice for the Christian Life
The Christian life is marked by assurance and joy. This was one of the hallmarks of the Reformation, and understandably so.
For Luther, the Christian life is a gospel-grounded, gospel-built, gospel-magnifying life that exhibits the free and sovereign grace of God and is lived out in gratitude to the Savior who died for us, yoked to Him in cross-bearing until death is swallowed up in victory and faith becomes sight. What do the sovereignty of... Continue Reading
What Has Been Lost – And Can Be Regained
What a Glorious Future Awaits Us
“As we think about glorification, it must be in this way; that man is not only delivered from all the effects of the Fall, and the sin and the transgression of Adam, but granted a far superior blessing, and given something of the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.” Most folks would have... Continue Reading
Repent or Perish
We must preach and believe the gospel every day of our lives.
As Jesus warned the Jews of His day, He warns us with the same option, repent or perish. Therefore, the divinely appointed leaders of the church must discern spiritually what is at stake and seek the LORD while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near, let them return to the LORD,... Continue Reading
Galatians Is the Antidote to Legalism and Antinomianism
I haven’t grown past my need to walk on a path paved with the grace-saturated words of this letter. I suspect I’m not alone, so here are six reasons I’ll never be able to leave Galatians behind.
Paul’s strong admonition in Galatians 1 helped spur Luther and other Reformers to recover the true gospel in the Reformation. The same gospel must be asserted and reasserted in every generation. Peter sought to stir up our minds by way of reminder because we are a forgetful people (2 Pet. 1:13). And the first thing... Continue Reading
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