When you consider all three senses of the Gospel, you begin to understand the call. Paul commands all believers to live consistent with the calling – or the Gospel. As believers, we are saved from sin and toward a new life of good works in Christ, become part of God’s one family, and receive the... Continue Reading

The sufficient Word has given those ordinary means of grace that, through their regular use, will shape believers to live as disciples who observe everything Jesus taught: reading the Word, preaching the Word, singing the Word, prayer, giving, baptism, and the Lord’s Table. The regular, disciplined use of these means of grace progressively forms believers... Continue Reading

As students begin courses and prepare for seminars, as pastors are trained for the pulpit, they are not required to engage the wisdom of the ancient past firsthand or what many have labelled classical Christianity. Such chronological snobbery, as C. S. Lewis called it, is pervasive.   Over the last several decades, evangelicalism’s lack of... Continue Reading

Across the great American political divide, the two warring tribes have made an identical judgment about the other—“I’m not hateful, you are.” Or, to put it even more precisely, “I may not hate you, but you hate me.”   One of the first and most elementary things a young Christian learns in Sunday school is... Continue Reading

It is my sincere hope we will all think carefully about our church-based commitments before returning to all of them. I said in the early days of the pandemic that it isn’t often we get a do-over in life, but this situation has given us one. Doesn’t it make sense to take it?   The... Continue Reading

As the world rises up in desperate rage against the police departments of our world in a broader sense, calling out for their defunding and in some cases abolishment, we are seeing the work of the great conspirator. Make no mistake, Satan’s aim is to ensure sin rules the day, and to remove any and... Continue Reading

Were God to withhold (common but especially) saving grace from us, remove the guard by which He shields our souls through faith, and retake or not bestow the regenerating and sanctifying Spirit that resists war-waging flesh, all of us would succumb to Satan like Judas.   Introduction Of all the characters in Scripture, the most... Continue Reading

The distinctions we make between good and evil are paramount. Scripture pleads with us to be alert to these decision points. And then there are micro distinctions we must make between what is good and what is better, what is bad and what is worse. In the best of times, all of these decision points... Continue Reading

The significant exodus from Protestant Evangelicalism to Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy in the last few decades is at least partly due to aesthetics: the perceived barrenness of beauty in the average Evangelical or low-church.   Sometimes throwaway lines leave a deep impression. One of those were words written on a blog I avidly followed... Continue Reading

Are all the troubles the world is currently facing punishments from above? The simple answer is yes . . . and no. Charles Spurgeon once quipped that “only fools and madmen are positive in their interpretation of the Apocalypse” (The Sword and the Trowel, October 1867). Perhaps you will bear with me in a little... Continue Reading