A Society Without Psalms
What will our secular nation look like without the bedrock of biblical categories through which to see the world, understand ourselves, and articulate the things which most matter.
From Shakespeare to Beckett, the language, the resonances, the cognitive space which the Bible opens to us are of tremendous social and psychological significance, a kind of grammar of the human heart, and of lived experience. What of a world which doesn’t have this framework, which cannot parse the silences, the recesses, the depths, the... Continue Reading
What Did Jesus Mean by “The World”?
The implications are enormous for those who have been united to Christ by faith alone
“Of course, in order to rightly understand the nature of Jesus’ victory over the world, we have to come to a right understanding of His use of the word “world” in these two places in John’s gospel.” In his excellent little book The Emotions of Jesus, Robert Law offers a passing contemplation about how... Continue Reading
Covenant Renewal
The language of ‘covenant’ has a much wider history in the church than merely those churches and congregations that self-identify as ‘covenantal’
“Those churches that have included a covenant renewal service in their church calendar often include, not only appropriate prayers of devotion in response to God’s covenant commitment to his people; but also renewal of vows on the part of the congregation.” The language of ‘covenant’ has a much wider history in the church than... Continue Reading
The Other Type of Miserable Counselor
When I’m training pastors or counselors I always try to dedicate time to walking through Job
“Looking over the landscape of evangelical Christianity I wonder if maybe we’ve swung the pendulum a bit too far in the direction of admonishing people not to be Job’s counselors whilst neglecting to admonish folks to also not be Micah’s prophets. Both are damaging.” When I’m training pastors or counselors I always try to... Continue Reading
The Battle Cry of the Reformation and the Surrender of Greek and Hebrew
One of the great ironies of the Protestant Reformation is shaping up in America today
The battle cry of the Reformation was ad fontes—“back to the sources!”—which meant going behind Jerome’s Latin Vulgate and reading the original Greek New Testament. This was coined by Erasmus, the man responsible for publishing the first Greek New Testament in 1516. One of the great ironies and unnecessary casualties of the Protestant Reformation... Continue Reading
But Who Are We?
We aren't those who throw out their Bibles, but we often are those who read our Bibles through the lens of our political views rather than submitting to Jesus
“Whether we will, through the ministry of the gospel, lead people to find their root identity in Christ alone or whether we will confirm their worldly identity as primarily political animals is the question.” In a new case of the tail wagging the dog, recent research indicates that Americans, whose political views were previously... Continue Reading
Truth And Love
Most of us tend toward one or the other of these types of extremes
“Speaking the truth is love” is contrasted to spiritual immaturity. In other words, both being loving without being truthful and being truthful without being loving are evidence of spiritual childishness. “Truth without love is brutality, and love without truth is hypocrisy.” Those words from Warren Wiersbe are profound & perpetually relevant. Think about it... Continue Reading
Doctrinal Pride
There are few issues harder to talk about and more insidious than spiritual pride.
There is one specific kind of undiscerned spiritual pride that I think is not often discussed and is especially hard to recognize—the danger of doctrinal righteousness. Sadly, I think it’s a particularly prevalent danger among Reformed, theologically-minded Christians. It’s a danger I have fallen into at times. By doctrinal righteousness, I mean trusting in your... Continue Reading
The Opportunity of an Eternity
Every waking hour before our death and prior to the second coming of Jesus Christ is an opportunity.
There is a God of this universe. He made all things visible and invisible. He is not part of his creation, because he is uncreated and uncaused. We are talking about a God so powerful, that he spoke the star-filled galaxies into existence and order, and that, from nothing. He took no classes and gathered no materials... Continue Reading
Inerrancy and Divine Accommodation
Biblical religion is revelatory; the great things of the gospel are revealed from outside us.
I have no wish to ignore challenges to the traditional doctrine of inerrancy. They are many, and some of them are subtle. Nonetheless, any doctrine of accommodation that offers an erring Jesus should be rejected by orthodox Christians. As the God-man, Jesus is fully divine—if we cannot trust His words without reservation, then we threaten... Continue Reading