The biblicist counselor isolates a verse of Scripture that appears to speak to the issue at hand and then applies it wrongly to the counselee, in part because the counselor is not reading Scripture with the church, its confessions, or its most trusted theologians and scholars. Instead, they isolate Scripture from Scripture (a most important... Continue Reading

You can hear it in their prayers. You can see it in their homes. You can tell by hearing the jokes they make (or decide not to make), the controversies they avoid, the judgments they pass (or don’t), the way they interact with their families, the things they spend their money on, the way they... Continue Reading

That children’s programming is now deliberately seeking to instruct young children in the sexual revolution, is clear evidence that it is being driven by an alien and hostile understanding of God and nature. It is teaching children than disorder is order, that what is unnatural is natural, that what is sin is righteousness.   Had... Continue Reading

The Bible teaches three facts of life: God is good. God is all-powerful. Terrible things happen. Any two of these facts make sense together if you exclude one. It does not matter which one you exclude. To embrace all three makes no sense. But faith involves believing all three truths at the same time. And... Continue Reading

Despite our right standing with him, God our Father doesn’t always approve of the things we do—things that are not right to do. We stumble in sin daily, and we grieve the Spirit when we intentionally sin against our own God-given conscience (Jas 3:2; Eph 4:30). Even though the Father loves us always and won’t... Continue Reading

Paul tells us not “to boast” in our church work. Jesus tells us that husbands were ordained to emotionally bond with their wives, to serve created yearnings for intimate relationships both with spouse and with God. To substitute something else instead (like relishing in the accolades from church volunteerism or even relishing in the success... Continue Reading

In John 15:1, Jesus spoke his seventh and final “I Am” (εγω ειμι): a self-identification of all that he is and all that he came to do as the true Israel of God. In saying “I am the true vine,” Christ drew from Old Testament language concerning the old covenant people of God.   Of... Continue Reading

Not only is this an ill-quoted text, but it is also a problematic path to tread, both within and without the evangelical enclosure. If Paul’s statement is as conversation-stopping as appears to be claimed, if meaningful discussion must end at this point, then Christianity has given away more than it imagines. If Paul is positing... Continue Reading

After Yahweh Elohim spoke into nothing and out of nothing and created all that is (see Genesis 1–2) all we creatures were in a culture. The garden was a culture. It was a small society but it was a culture. After the fall we were all in various fallen cultures. Genesis chapters 4–11 chronicle for... Continue Reading

Paul advises the Ephesians that there are certain things Christians must put off and others they must put on. More specifically, he tells them (and us) to put on the Christian armor so we can be properly equipped to stand up to the assaults that inevitably come our way in this spiritually dangerous world.  ... Continue Reading