A Guidebook for the Coming Christological Civil War
Christology has lost its twofold basis.
Many Christians no longer affirm the key to classical Christology doctrine, namely, that the infinite, immutable, impassible one unites to finite, mutable, and passible humanity. Some Christians even affirm neo-apollinarianism. And rarely do churches proclaim Christology from the pulpit (at least in its more theological form). As we have debated the doctrine of Trinity... Continue Reading
What Do You Mean by Evil?
Also known as “the rock of atheism,” the problem of evil argument intends to show an internal contradiction between the nature of God and the story of reality.
There’s a reason why we all wrestle with this issue at one time or another. It’s because everyone experiences evil to some extent, and certainly everyone experiences suffering at some point in life. Keep that in mind for a minute. It was standing room only as people lined the back of the packed room.... Continue Reading
Defining Heresy as “Damnable Error”
“Heresy” is one of those words that some Christians misapply.
This definition is helpful. It provides a framework to help you evaluate whether the teaching you don’t like is from a sheep that you disagree with or a wolf who needs to be ignored or rebuked or both. Let’s break down the definition a little more. Occasionally, I’ll see a social media post about... Continue Reading
Sometimes It’s Best To Express Your Wisdom in Silence
True wisdom is not only knowing your subject well, but also knowing the limitations of your knowledge.
The words “ultra crepidam” have been combined and anglicized, then passed to us in the term “ultracrepidarian.” An ultracrepidarian is someone who goes “beyond the shoe.” He is “one who is presumptuous and offers advice or opinions beyond his sphere of knowledge.” Or “someone who has no special knowledge of a subject but who expresses... Continue Reading
Theoretical Inerrantists
We have made the affirmation of the Bible's inerrancy almost meaningless.
As I grappled with the nature of Scripture, its authority, power, and sufficiency, and the implications for my life and ministry, my world was rocked. I had been raised by a godly mother who taught her children to believe the Bible but I had never thought deeply about the nature and implications of divine revelation.... Continue Reading
The Resurrection: Historical Reliability
Twelve facts that amply prove the resurrection of Christ.
Outside the Bible and the writings of early Christians, there are very few other references to Christ from the late first and early second centuries. Should that bother us? No, not at all! For two reasons: first, the total extant literature from this period would fill a very small section of one ordinary bookshelf, so... Continue Reading
Living Holy in the World
The Spirit-filled believer is filled with the wind of the Holy Spirit to move in obedience through each day as directed by God.
Living in this age, prior to the age to come, is the proving ground for the believer. God uses this life to mature His children, growing them in Christlikeness. We err when we become so temporally focused that we view what is going around us now as if the eternal is not awaiting us. How... Continue Reading
What Sin Will Never Quench
Why We Trust in Broken Cisterns
Scripture makes clear that God wants us to understand what it means for us to commit evil. The whole Bible, from the fall in Eden onward, is one long account of the catastrophic fallout of evil’s infection of the human race and God’s unfolding plan to ultimately overcome that unfathomable evil with an even more... Continue Reading
Looking for the Lost
The sovereign Saviour of the world uses the agency of his redeemed children scattered throughout that world to seek the perishing and, in his own words, ‘compel them to come in’ (Lk 14.23).
The very same Bible that sets out the aforementioned truths about God also sets out God’s declared means of bringing these people from being elect to the point at of actually receiving this salvation for themselves. And the means God sets out in his word is the spiritual equivalent of a search and rescue mission... Continue Reading
Is There a ‘Right Side’ of History?
We ought to yearn to be on the side of God and of the good, the true, and the beautiful, and to stand on the last day.
The next time someone challenges your biblical convictions on law, morality, society, or salvation as repressive or troglodytic, consider three presuppositions that underlie the colloquialism “the right side of history”: Objective morality. If there is a “right” side of history, there is a wrong side as well. But who determines this standard? Who stands as... Continue Reading