Beauty’s Difficulties: Accounting for Taste
Beauty is to be discerned, and discernment can be developed.
One of the obstacles to understanding the question of taste is common view that art is to be a matter of spontaneous pleasure and immediate delight. The idea that one’s ability to discern beauty is a discipline that can be practiced is unfamiliar to many Christians. How can beauty be a real property if... Continue Reading
What is a Biblical Model of the ‘Missionary Call’?
The narrative of Acts is primarily descriptive, but in some ways can serve as a timeless model to which we can look for wisdom.
How in the world do we know if what we are discerning is a true call? Is it only an invitation by a second party, or is it the individual’s initiative? The missionary call seems to be both an individual/subjective conviction and a corporate/objective confirmation. We often overlook and/or misunderstand the New Testament model.... Continue Reading
Infusion and Imputation: An Introduction
What are we in the 21st century to think about this divide between Catholics and Protestants?
Does not the world require both poetry and prose? The Scriptures describe both a journey and a judgment seat. But if these differences are merely stylistic, why then did so many suffer persecution for such differences? In fact, this is about more than wording or emphasis, ambiguity or perspicuity. The issue in question is none... Continue Reading
Christ will Reign Forever
One of the most important teachings about our Lord Jesus Christ is that all of creation is really all about Him.
Human reason is not capable of understanding God fully. Our puny attempts at trying to explain the Holy Trinity always have holes and problems and come up far short. What we must do is simply believe our Lord, obey Him as we accept that He is reigning now and will do so forever. I... Continue Reading
The Certainty of God in an Uncertain World
The problem with journeys such as this is that we don’t particularly care for the ones we don’t choose, and who chose this year?
Gandalf asked Bilbo why the morning was good. “Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel good this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?” Bilbo’s answer was all of the above. It was... Continue Reading
Reading Slowly to See Heaven on Earth
Edwards shows that extended meditation on heaven can provide much stability and sanity to those on earth for good living.
While believers on earth are right to focus on serving in local churches to guard and proclaim the gospel and carry that good news to the ends of the earth, we are helped in that ongoing, though temporal, task by focusing on what will become of the church in heaven. Indeed, we are most effective... Continue Reading
God’s Law in the Gospel Age
How Jesus Sets Us Free
Paul knew the happy God of the universe is not selfish with his joy. Never. His Trinitarian bliss expands outward as a gift to the creation, a gift to you and to me — the undeserving recipients of the happiness of God in his beloved Son. Our neighbors, right now out on their toys, who... Continue Reading
Augustine, Psalm 32, and the Grace of Justification
"I admire the good work as fruit, but I recognize that it springs from the root of faith."
May we––as the Reformers before us––wholeheartedly embrace Augustine’s teaching about the way in which “sinful man depends, for his recovery to good and to God, entirely on the free grace of God.” Lately, as I have been reading through Augustine’s Expositions of the Psalms, I have been struck afresh by how central God’s free,... Continue Reading
The Late Great Sunday Service
Simply put, is church online a healthy alternative to the in-person experience?
Carefully weigh your motivation for staying away from your local church service. Whenever the time finally comes that we find our primary motivation for remaining home is simply convenience, I encourage you to reconsider in light of these criteria. In meeting together, we embrace a long tradition of togetherness, we answer a call to connectedness,... Continue Reading
What If You Only Had One Hour of Life Remaining?
Are you living with urgency or is your Christian walk categorized by complacency or laziness?
If the writers of the New Testament believed they were living in the last days and urged the early church to be prepared for the coming of Christ—imagine what they would say to us in our day. We must recognize that the culmination of our salvation is nearer today than it has been since we... Continue Reading