Classic Theism: Worshiping the Immutable God
All of life and even all of worship is “from him and through him and to him.”
Today’s obsession with being relevant and being all things to all people isn’t so much the fruit of pragmatism (though it is that too) but more so the outcome of forgetting God. We’ve forgotten the Immutable, Impassable, God only wise and so we’ve become convinced that God is OK with our neat tricks and new... Continue Reading
Pictures of Jesus
When God supplies so many rich and varied pictures of believing in Christ, I dare you to still believe that he doesn’t want you to believe!
Why does God give us so many pictures of believing in Jesus? Why not just some philosophical treatise on faith, or some systematic theology of faith? Why illustrations? And why so many? First, because faith is so hard. Unbelief comes naturally to us; faith is unnatural. Faith is so hard it has to be given us... Continue Reading
Classic Theism: Trinitarian Errors
Any conception of the Trinity that purports to uphold one portion of Scripture while ignoring others is in fact a violation of Scripture and a failure to trust in its sufficiency.
Most errors fall into one of three categories. First, they deny that God exists in Trinity or diminish the Persons to such an extent that it becomes a practical Unitarianism. Second, they either explicitly state that there are three separate Gods or stress the differences so much that they essentially demote one or more of... Continue Reading
Actually They Don’t Just Hate the Church, They Hate Jesus
At least we’re cutting through all the cant about how the problem we have is that people hate the church but deep down really love Jesus.
Sure we can be stupid. Sure we can be selfish. Sure we can do lots of dumb things as the church. And no excuses for them. But deep down the world seethes with hatred for Jesus. It burns with an unquenchable loathing (and it will be unquenchable) for the fact that Jesus is king of... Continue Reading
If You Want To Know What P&R Christians Believe, Read The Confessions
In these documents, the churches (as corporate bodies) and her members confess before God, the church, and the watching world what we believe.
The confessions and catechisms of the P&R churches emerged from the sixteenth-century Reformation, when pastors and churches returned to God’s Word (sola Scriptura!) as the ruling authority for the Christian faith and the Christian life and Reformed the church from its various doctrinal and practical corruptions. From earliest decades of the Reformation the P&R churches... Continue Reading
N.T. Wright’s Long Farewell
An assessment of N. T. Wright’s teaching and influence in the evangelical church.
And thus, for Wright, Christ Himself takes no punishment as our substitute, because even though He was hanging, suffering on the cross, it was not Him who is being punished, but sin—and yet, somehow, He was still our substitute. And so—Voilà!—Wright has convinced himself (and all his acolytes, I might add) that he still believes... Continue Reading
Why Theology Matters
Theology matters because it recognizes that there is ultimity and universality.
Theology is our quest for knowledge about this ultimate being; not only for the Christian, but for any philosopher and physicist. Culturally we’ve relegated theology to a specialty subject, but because of the definition and nature of God, it is a subject that encompasses all the sciences – both physical and metaphysical – and any... Continue Reading
There Is No Romper Room-MacGyver God
Though most agree that “everything happens for a reason” they balk at the idea that God ordains all things
The Bible does not present God as a heavenly MacGyver who is so big and powerful that he can take the junk and bad mistakes of our lives and make good things out of them; rather, he is the perfect God who designs and fulfills “all things according to the counsel of his will” (Ephesians... Continue Reading
Those Who Are Truly Forgiven, Truly Forgive
When we go to God weighed down with the debt of all our sin, He does not sit down with us to work out a payment plan. Instead, He offers full and free forgiveness.
There are still some things we owe to God, however — not out of debt, but out of gratitude — and one of those things is forgiveness. “Forgive us our debts,” Jesus taught us to pray, “as we forgive our debtors” (Matt. 6:12 nkjv). From this petition we learn that we are not the only ones... Continue Reading
Who Am I? Who Are You? The Power of Identity
Many are inclined to view themselves as a blight or blemish on the body of Christ, a useless, transient appendage that contributes little to the advancement of God’s kingdom.
Here is your current identity and ultimate destiny if you know Christ truly. It consists in having inscribed on your heart the name of God, of his city, and of his Son! There is, of course, as is the case with virtually all spiritual realities, a sense in which this is already true of us... Continue Reading