Christ Our Passover
The blood of Christ has been poured out for us that the Destroyer might pass over us on that final day of judgment.
What the Passover said to the Israelites, the gospel continues to say to us: there is hope and comfort for us, sinful as we are, not because of anything that we can do or have done, but because God is gracious and kind in His covenant. All that the law requires, the gospel gives in... Continue Reading
Does God Have Emotions?
Nothing outside of God can affect him nor make him suffer loss.
God has no human emotions. He does have affections, however. We too have affections. Yet we both share affections through an analogy—God has affections in ways befitting a divine being, while we have affections in ways befitting humans. We know the second quite well, but cannot understand the first. Since the first century, Christians... Continue Reading
The Holy Spirit & the “Ordinary” Christian Life
If you a Christian, and are growing as a Christian, the Holy Spirit is doing a powerful work in your life.
There is no “ordinary” Christian life without the power and help and mercy of the Holy Spirit. The basic patterns, practices, rhythms, and direction of the Christian life are anything but natural and anything but ordinary. Being and living as a Christian are works of God; God the Holy Spirit. In the Christian life, ordinary... Continue Reading
What Does the True Christmas Spirit Look Like?
Christ came to this broken, dark earth, and we are to seek to be like Him.
It’s Christmas. It’s the season where Christians celebrate a Savior who gave up everything to come and dwell with broken people. Will I be like Him? Will you? Will we look and find those people in our family, our community, our church, our neighborhood who need love? One of our family’s yearly Christmas traditions... Continue Reading
The Ten Commandments: The Eighth
What does the Bible say about stealing?
But perhaps the most damning indictment of the evil of stealing is when we consider the fact that the greatest sin of all time, the betrayal of Christ, was in effect an act of man-stealing by Judas Iscariot, who sold Jesus to the Jews for thirty pieces of silver. …he was a thief, and... Continue Reading
Imagine Life Without His Words
Why We Translate the Bible
What’s ultimately at stake in Bible translation is the praise and glory of the slain Lamb. Revelation envisions a kingdom people from every tribe and people and language (Revelation 5:9; 7:9). Bible translation aims at our God and the Lamb receiving more and more praise as the translated word impacts ethnolinguistic people groups all around... Continue Reading
A Half-Learned Christ
We are ever in danger of losing our grip on the gospel in favor of embracing some counterfeit aspects of counterfeit spirituality.
Colossians 2:6-23 is the locus classicus for the way in which the Apostle Paul focuses his readers attention on the ever present danger of being deceived by counterfeit gospels, religions and practices. It would serve us well to return there often and consider what Paul says to a congregation full of new believers who were vulnerable to... Continue Reading
Core Convictions about Prayer
To be people of prayer we need to know what prayer is.
Through the psalmist the Lord invites us, saying, “Pour out your hearts before him” (Ps. 62:8). When he walked this earth our Lord showed that he invites us to pray, saying three times in his teaching on prayer, “When you pray,” and then he said, “Pray then like this” (Matt. 6:5, 6, 7, 9). Clearly, God desires and... Continue Reading
You Are Not What You Eat
Our obsession with food—its source, ingredients, preparation, and presentation—exposes a hunger for meaningfulness even in the material.
Foodie-ism becomes dangerous when it assigns a transformative value to food that food inherently lacks. Do you look to what’s on the table to change and renew your inner nature in some way? Is what you consume your all-consuming focus? Are you serving your taste buds and seeking to satisfy your stomach at all costs?... Continue Reading
Tried With Fire: Direction
We must develop a capacity for judging when God is using circumstances to test us and when He is using circumstances to change our direction.
God sent the storm. God prepared the sea-creature. In one sense, these calamities represented God’s chastening. At the same time, however, the sovereign Lord meant them to change Jonah’s direction. God used both the storm and the leviathan to lead His prophet. We face a kind of paradox in doing the Lord’s work. On... Continue Reading