Maybe you feel stuck in life right now.  Maybe you feel trapped and unable to make progress with Jesus.  As if your feet trudge through thick, sticky mud and you can’t get to where you need to be.  Or you’ve fallen into a pit and you’ve tried to claw yourself out.  But it’s just not possible.... Continue Reading

The Forgiveness of Sins. Perhaps the greatest of Paul’s arguments is that which he sets out in verses 17-18. If Jesus is not raised then no one has their sins forgiven. The logical implication of this is that those who have professed faith in Christ but who have already died have perished because they would... Continue Reading

“Every addict tells four kinds of lies: lies about God, lies about themselves, lies about the sin, and lies about others. The only way to deliver addicts is to rip out these lies and replace them with truth.”   It doesn’t matter what kind of addiction it is—drink, drugs, food, gambling, porn, spending, tanning, people-pleasing,... Continue Reading

When we say that so much of the Christian life and pastoral ministry is in the recovery, we are not intimating that it’s all up to us or “we just have to try harder” and “just try to do better.” What we are saying is that what we do after we fail or falter is... Continue Reading

“If Christ’s atonement is unlimited, then He universally dies to save every human being. So is my salvation fully accomplished by Christ? Not completely, since I can still suffer the judgement of condemnation for my sins in unbelief. Christ’s offer of salvation becomes provisional, depending on my response.”   All too often, when the doctrine... Continue Reading

“I’ve been moved to tears reading other books, but this book actually reads me, wrecks me, and rebuilds me. What’s more, I’ve seen and experienced this same thing with other people. This change is not limited to gender, ethnicity, geography, or even time. This book claims to change lives, and it actually does.”   As... Continue Reading

Forgive my bluntness, but claiming to love Jesus while wanting nothing to do with the church is just stupid. If the “Jesus” we’re talking about is the God-man whose life, death, resurrection, and ascension is described and defined for us by the inspired writings of those he commissioned to disciple the nations, then the “church”... Continue Reading

A while back, I wrote a post about the places in Scripture where the female voice dominates, sort of interrupting the androcentricity of Scripture in a complementary way. Richard Bauckham’s fascinating book, Gospel Women, is one that I keep returning to for discovery. He has a great section where he elaborates on the Gentile foremothers of the gospel.... Continue Reading

York Minster’s glory, its substance, however, is not primarily in its sprawling opulence or in its regal pageantry. As is the case with any church, the glory that must be maintained as a matter of first importance is not so much a place for prayer as it is a furnace of prayer whose fires burn... Continue Reading

The doctrine of the Trinity is the vast, deep background behind all our theology, and when we explicitly talk about it we make a comprehensive claim about who God is if the gospel is true. But often the background stays in the background, and enables us to say particular things about Jesus, discipleship, the cross,... Continue Reading