Why 2 Chronicles Is the Most Underrated Book in the Bible
Second Chronicles is full of treasure.
It is the Acts of the Old Testament: the story of how God’s house was established and filled with the Spirit, how his people prayed, worshiped, failed, repented, were captured by their enemies and ultimately set free, and how Gentiles came to worship him. There are heroes like Peter and John (Solomon, Hezekiah, Josiah). There are... Continue Reading
The Gospel, the Christian, and the Past
The grace of God overcomes your past and enables your growth in the future.
Paul testified, “But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead, I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God’s heavenly call in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3:13–14). However, there is also a difference—a massive difference— between overlooking your past and forgetting about it. Paul never overlooked his past.... Continue Reading
True Fruit of the Fear of God
If we are walking this life outside of the fear of God then we will be operating in the flesh.
The fear of God is the missing ingredient in most professing Christian’s walks. The Spirit-filled believer does fear God and walks in submission to Him in all things. The fleshly believer does not fear God and walks according his or her fleshly fears and lusts. They may indeed deeply desire to have victory over their... Continue Reading
Keep the Whole Book in Mind
The whole Bible matters when we interpret the whole Bible.
We write a lot on this blog about how context matters. But we aren’t only concerned with the sentences and paragraphs surrounding your favorite verse. This example from Luke 20 shows the importance of at least three different Scriptural contexts. The location of the question in Luke 20 and the baptism in Luke 3 reminds us that the immediate context... Continue Reading
Why Do Christians Need to Hear the Gospel Every Day?
Meditating on God’s Word and gospel truths roots our faith.
The gospel is a greater treasure than temporary gratification, a greater pleasure than sin to enjoy. Knowing that there is no good thing we can do that would make God love us more in Christ actually frees us to love and obey him rather than to take advantage of His grace (see all of Romans... Continue Reading
A Creedal Christmas – Christ
To say that Jesus is the Christ is to ascribe to Him all that the Old Testament heralded of God’s Messiah.
The fifth chapter of the Gospel of John paints an epochal portrait of Jesus, speaking of His identity and the climactic character of His mission. In that chapter Jesus says this: “You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me” (John 5:39). The... Continue Reading
The Ten Commandments: The Sixth
May he grant us grace to resist anger and promote life.
We must begin by following our Lord’s direction and confronting the murderous tendencies of our own hearts. In his sermons on the Ten Commandments, Henry Bullinger singles out anger and envy as twin, deadly tendencies. Sinful anger is a sense of injury that intends to resolve itself to the hurt of the one who offended... Continue Reading
A Tale of Two Responses: Worldly Grief and Godly Grief
As believers, we must acknowledge that when we are confronted with our sin, it is the kindness of the Lord.
Our response when we are confronted with our transgressions reveals whether we have worldly grief or godly grief. John the Baptist exhorted the crowds who came out to be baptized by him, “Bear fruits in keeping with repentance” (Luke 3:8). That is, turn from your sin and do the things which reflect a repentant heart.... Continue Reading
Darwinism’s Big Breakdown
Michael Behe says evolution degrades genes but doesn’t create them.
Behe’s new book, Darwin Devolves, focuses on how “Darwinian processes nicely account for changes at the species and genus levels of biological classification, but not for changes at the level of family or higher”—in other words, microevolution but not macroevolution. Michael Behe, a 67-year-old biochemistry professor who has taught at Lehigh University since 1985,... Continue Reading
A Western Renaissance
The relationship between Charlemagne and the papacy was uneasy.
Charlemagne and his successors saw themselves as “sacred kings,” the divinely chosen rulers of a Christian empire, responsible to God for its spiritual as well as secular welfare. The pope was, to them, nothing more than their chief spiritual advisor. So long as church and state were united, and seen as two aspects of a... Continue Reading