Basic to Abiding
Just as we draw near to God through His revelation of Himself in His Word, so we draw near to abide in Christ through the ways He is revealed in the Bible.
How do we abide? We abide in three primary ways: knowing Christ, letting the word of Christ dwell in us richly, and drawing upon Christ through prayer. Basic and central to all these aspects of abiding is fellowship with the living Christ. Peter characterizes our spiritual development as growing in “the grace and knowledge of our Lord and... Continue Reading
Does God Suffer?
The Comfort of Divine Beatitude
The Holy Scriptures teach that God is happy and has no sorrows. Paul preaches “the gospel of the glory of the blessed God” (1 Tim. 1:11). The word translated “blessed” (makarios) tells us that God possesses all that is necessary for true happiness or “beatitude.” This enriches our appreciation of the gospel. It has... Continue Reading
When You Feel Like a Burden…
His grace is sufficient for you and his power is being made perfect in your weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9).
I remember being livid at my daughter, when she realized she had forgotten her ballet shoes as I dropped her off at her recital. I had apologized later, but in the heat of the moment, I had lashed out, exhausted and wondering whether I could be back in time. As I brought these thoughts and... Continue Reading
10 Things You Should Know About the Antichrist(s) in 1 John
Interestingly, the only place in the NT where the word “antichrist” appears is in the Johannine Epistles, not in Revelation.
Nowhere in Revelation is the “beast” ever called “antichrist”. In his first epistle John emphatically states (1 John 2:18) that we may know this is (the) last hour because of the existence and activity of many antichrists. He says: “Children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so... Continue Reading
How Identity Politics is Changing the Church
What Kimberlé Crenshaw was able to do in the leftist world of the LGBTQA+ movement through intersectionality is now being used to leverage a social justice movement within evangelicalism.
Intersectionality was originally coined in 1989 by Kimberlé Crenshaw, a political activist and radical feminist, in order to help identify and aid individual classes of discrimination or victim groups. Through intersectionality, the more victim groups a person identifies with—the more power they can obtain. It is no secret that American politics has been overtaken by identity... Continue Reading
Why Every Generation Must Contend for Justification Sola Fide
Although justification sola fide may have been obscured somewhat by the New Perspective on Paul, the appearance of alternatives to sola fide is nothing new.
Luther realized that every generation of orthodox evangelicals would have to contend for this article anew; he also understood that however many alternatives have appeared, they are all ultimately just varieties of the one common anti-grace, anti-gospel, and thus anti-Christ error or works-righteousness. The Heart of the Gospel Justification sola fide is the heart of the... Continue Reading
Introduction to Divine Simplicity
The principle of divine simplicity is embedded in the Reformation era confessions, and as such, it is important for us to explore.
When theologians speak of God as simple, they intend a different meaning from the more everyday use of the term, and it can escape those who have not studied the doctrine of God in-depth. When we confess that God is simple, we are making a metaphysical statement—that is, a statement about the nature of God’s... Continue Reading
God is the Hero in the Story
Let us see God’s sovereign and providential usage of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, John the Baptist, the Disciples, Paul, Timothy, and others, and point to him.
Samson was both powerful and pitiful. He was faithful and faithless. This strong man was the epitome of the double-minded man; he was unstable in all his ways. And the consequences of his sin were horrid. Towards the end of the story, Samson is the captured, humiliated, blinded, and bound poster-boy of Philistine domination. He... Continue Reading
Tassels of Grace
Every command that God gave Israel came in the context of what He had promised in previous covenantal revelation, what He had done in bringing them out of the bondage of Egypt and what He would do in fulfilling all of the Old Covenant types and shadows in Christ.
Garments find their place in redemptive history in the Garden of Eden. There is a rich biblical theology of clothing in the very first chapters of the Bible. Adam was to be God’s prophet, priest and king in the Garden. He was to live, move and carry out the commission God gave him, clothed in that holiness.... Continue Reading
Are the Prayers of Some People More Effective?
“The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working” (James 5:16).
Who is the righteous person? This is where it gets a little more complicated, though in one sense again the answer is obvious: those who are united to Christ by faith are counted righteous (2 Cor. 5:21). Those who are righteous in Christ can be confident that God will be more inclined to grant their requests. ... Continue Reading