Those committed to Scripture’s divine inspiration and inerrancy understand that if the Bible actually is God’s word, then it must be the guidebook for living in relation to God and others. Throughout the centuries of church history, at least the Christian church has said that Scripture is God’s authoritative word, even if attending to its... Continue Reading

What’s all this stuff in the book of Hebrews about priests and the Most Holy Place and a guy named Melchizedek? It feels kinda like Old Testament stuff to me, and I’m definitely done with that. That horse has been put out to pasture and shipped to the glue factory (that’s how that analogy goes,... Continue Reading

For a secularist like Sagan, this snapshot of the cosmos is to be brought to a precipice of insignificance and to behold the meaninglessness of everything. Our lives mean nothing. Indeed the collective lives of everyone who has ever lived, combined, add up to nothing of significance. All the drama on this blue dot means... Continue Reading

To say we can never declare a behavior to be wrong is ultimately self-defeating. The rich irony for those people who say we shouldn’t judge is that they themselves are judging. They are declaring a behavior to be “wrong” (in this case, the behavior of judging), while at the same time insisting we shouldn’t declare... Continue Reading

The second noteworthy detail is the order in which they articulate their apostolic duties: prayer first and preaching second. Even by this early stage of their work, they were discovering how the Holy Spirit, as Christ had promised, would enable them to speak and proclaim God’s word effectively – even under the most unlikely circumstances.... Continue Reading

“Ideas have consequences. The blurring and sometimes complete loss of the doctrine of creation in our time affects the way we understand our nature and function as human beings. Creation is a reminder that the relationship we have with God is not that of equals. We owe our existence to Him, and we are essentially... Continue Reading

“Clement could hardly have been clearer. Were we to read 32:4 out of context, we might be excused for wondering which of the Protestant Reformers wrote it. That language, however, did not come to us from the Protestants.”   Perhaps the first post-Apostolic use of the New Testament verb “to justify” (δικαιόω) occurs in 1... Continue Reading

Just as Paul might say about the resurrection “if Christ has not been raised…you are still in our sins” (1 Cor. 15:17), so too, we might say about the ascension “if Christ has not ascended into heaven itself, we are still in our sins.” Even after the work on the cross, there remains the phase... Continue Reading

“It would be easy to think of saving as a purely selfish activity. That can indeed be the case —we need only read about the rich fool in Luke 12— but it doesn’t have to be. Saving honors God because it rightly values money as a gift that he has given to us (James 1:16–17).”... Continue Reading

The Spirit persuades us about Jesus entirely on the basis of Jesus Himself. Yet this persuasion arises because the Father has sent Him, because Jesus gives evidence of who He is, and because the Spirit opens our blind eyes to recognize Him. As with Peter, our conviction is not a flesh-and-blood matter (Matt. 16:16–17); like... Continue Reading