Pilgrims in a Pandemic
In a way, this pandemic has given us a wonderful opportunity.
In the midst of the heartache, the anxiety, the loss, God is working—always working—his beautiful plan for his glory and the good of his people. Coronavirus has, for a moment at least, stripped away the façade of this world’s system. This virus has shaken us loose from our addiction to all things worldly and can... Continue Reading
The Great Omission in Our Prayers of Thanksgiving: Chastisement
In the sunset years of my life I realize that my personal Great Omission is not thanking God for chastising me when I sin.
As I thank God for His chastisements in my life regardless of painfulness, I also remember and thank Him that Jesus Christ was pierced for my transgressions, crushed for my iniquities, and that He was chastened for my well-being, that by His scourging I’ve been healed. Thank God that “the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him.” “Whoever loves discipline... Continue Reading
The Nature of Unbelieving Thought
Choose this day whom you will serve!
The pressure to be neutral causes professing Christians to actually compromise while they never actually realize they are doing so. They may believe that their intellectual neutrality is compatible with a Christian profession, but actually, they are operating in terms of unbelief. Why is this so? 17 So this I say, and affirm together... Continue Reading
For the Church’s Sake, Don’t Let this Crisis Go to Waste- Part 2of 2 [7 Paradigms]
If we waste our crisis, we will quickly slip into old paradigms and have very little fruit to show for this time of suffering.
Crisis and suffering in scripture are never used as a means to better preserve what we consider normal. It is always used to realign the hearts and minds of God’s people to the purposes of God, a deepening through refining. If that doesn’t happen in times of testing, suffering or crisis- we are in danger... Continue Reading
Four Clarifying (I Hope) Thoughts on the Complementarian Conversation
Our theology must not be formed by personal anecdote or personal angst.
Manhood and womanhood cannot be reduced to authority and submission, or to leadership and nurture. But these things are meaningful expressions of what it means to be a man and a woman, rooted not just in the names we give to people but in nature itself. The expression of nature will not look identical in... Continue Reading
Justification and the Remonstrants
The Remonstrants made faith the ground of our justification.
In 1610, followers of Jacobus Arminius, who died in 1609, presented a “Remonstrance,” an official state protest, to the civil government of Holland and Friesland. They were seeking political toleration to continue as ministers in Dutch churches. In five theological articles their protest outlined substantial divergence from the far more commonly held Calvinistic beliefs found... Continue Reading
The Law of Christ is the Moral Law
The Reformation churches are united in their affirmation of the continuing validity of the Moral Law as the norm of the Christian life.
The Holy Spirit uses the Ten Commandments to drive even Christians back to Christ so that we will learn again and again to flee to him for righteousness and salvation. By hearing them read week and after week and by meditating on them, we are also driven to our knees and thence to Christ for... Continue Reading
Can political liberalism and religious liberty (accommodation) coexist?
Reshaping religious exercise around liberal values can dilute religion.
Compromises in the name of political liberalism are at best short-lived and at worst preferential towards modern paganism. Any worldview that finds meaning and purpose and epistemological grounding in this world rather than another will always marginalize the transcendent religionists to the outer periphery of society. Can political liberalism and religious liberty (accommodation) coexist?... Continue Reading
Is There Always Sin On Every Side?
When people are saying things about you that are essentially untrue, what is the best way to address it?
All too often, those who would cause division and dissent can neither substantiate their criticism nor, sometimes, even articulate what their actual criticism is. Yet many churches routinely expect their leaders to take a “humble” stance (for which read, conciliatory and submissive) to accusations that are both unjust and untrue. A few weeks back,... Continue Reading
Types and Sacraments
The relationship of covenant theology and typology to sacraments.
It is clear that both sets of sacraments share the same already/not yet realization: the OT sacraments were signs of what was and what would be; the NT sacraments are signs of what is and what will be. Moreover, in both sets of sacraments, promises and warnings of the age to come attend their external... Continue Reading