Over the years, I’ve come to appreciate that God is the One True Owner who owns everything. All blessings flow from him. As believers, that means we are stewards of whatever God blesses us with, including financial resources. The Bible is full of financial advice.   I used to call my former financial advisor every... Continue Reading

The freedom of the church is the freedom to demand that its members and ministers adhere to its own biblical standards. The church is not the state (nor is it backed by the state’s power) and has no power of enforcement or compulsion except to declare truth and declare who is a member. 1  “It would,... Continue Reading

Over the years, Ramchandra led dozens of others to Christ, including future church leader Tara Chand. It is said that even the Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar summoned Ramchandra to dissuade him from becoming a Christian. However, this only led to one of the Emperor’s servants coming to faith in Christ. Ramchandra eventually became the... Continue Reading

Satan will try intensely to divert your gaze. He will make you feel there’s no time to do such nonsense as to “meditate” on God when all the problems are so pressing. When there are so many “interesting and important” things to look at. So many things more “entertaining.” But refuse his demonic temptations. Mature,... Continue Reading

The only symbols that should be present are those that belong to Christ—word, sacrament, and prayer. I used to hide the American flag, therefore, so that my congregation knew that as a congregation we belong to Christ and no one else. I’m sure that the idea of removing the American flag from the sanctuary might fray... Continue Reading

God has gifted you with faith in the Captain of your salvation, Jesus Christ (Heb 2:10). His sinless life, His death on the cross, and His glorious resurrection are the only things that can uphold you on that day of dread and gladness. A faith in anything else has no backbone and is empty. Only... Continue Reading

The most important label—one that cries out for acknowledgment from the thousands of pages of his mighty corpus—is follower of Jesus. Bavinck loved the God who saved him by grace, and amid the complexity and brilliance of his thought, there is always a doxological current. As Bavinck put it: A theologian is a person who... Continue Reading

One of the finest expressions of Romanticism today is Donna Tartt’s prize-winning novel The Goldfinch. Published in 2013 to critical acclaim and commercial success, it is a classic Bildungsroman in which a teenage boy, grief-stricken by the death of his mother, follows his emotions into a series of increasingly unwise decisions, complex relationships, and the criminal underworld.... Continue Reading

Navigating the tension of vocation in exile involves a loving sensitivity and some amount of nuance but must always remain anchored in God’s vision for human flourishing, unswayed by cultural tides. Embodying and expressing this vision requires courageous, loving resistance. And part of resisting is remaining rather than retreating. This has been God’s plan for... Continue Reading

[Christ] suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into Hell. Because we believe that Jesus was a personal actor in space-time history, we deny that his death was merely symbolic. He suffered an unjust conviction and was crucified by the Roman authorities, who knew how to execute people effectively. We... Continue Reading