One Conviction That Affects Every Other Conviction
In a world of complexity, both tangible and intangible, simplicity is valuable.
When it comes to matters of faith, I’ve become increasingly convinced that there is a conviction you can hold that simplifies everything else. It’s one decision of faith that brings into perspective all other decisions of faith. It is, in fact, the central point of decision for moving forward with Jesus. And you can phrase... Continue Reading
God Does Not Help Those Who Help Themselves Or Why The Reformation Still Matters
God uses crooked sticks to strike straight blows.
There may be some irregular sorts of missions and church planting efforts through which the Spirit is pleased to act. It is not our business to tell the Holy Spirit where and when he may act. It is our business, however, to be faithful to God’s Word. We know what God’s revealed will and Word are from... Continue Reading
Marriage, Singleness, and Human Flourishing for Everyone (2 Corinthians 7)
How do we flourish as sexual beings in a permissive culture?
Remember that some in Corinth thought that sexual fulfillment came not from marital sex but from sex with prostitutes, and that others thought that we’d all be better off without sex. Paul doesn’t like either view. He’s neither “anything goes” nor is he a prude. Rather, he believes that sex in marriage is beautiful. It’s... Continue Reading
8 Truths About Speech & the Christian Life
Incalculable damage can be done to people and to relationships simply by the use of sinful speech.
The letter of James is about the importance of living out a consistent Christian faith and the sad tendency for all Christians to contradict our faith by the lives we that we live. And in this sobering passage, James (one of Jesus’ younger brothers) exposes one of the most common and most troublesome ways in... Continue Reading
Are Miracles Improbable? Rethinking What Makes Something “Likely” to Happen
The probability of a miraculous event is contingent on a person’s overall worldview and the assumptions they make about reality.
If a person believed God did not exist (or at least did not intervene in the world), then they would view the probability of a miracle as very, very low. And they’d be right. In a Godless universe, we would have to assume that Jesus of Nazareth died and rose from the dead naturally. The odds of that... Continue Reading
Good News! The Dividing Wall Is Gone
There is essentially one people of God.
Believers under the Old Testament, i.e., meaning in every epoch of redemptive history prior to the New Covenant, were all looking forward to Jesus’ coming. They were all trusting Jesus, who was revealed to them under types and shadows (Col 2:17; Heb 8 [all]). Types and shadows were revelations of future realities that we veiled... Continue Reading
Herman Bavinck on Men And Women
"People and nations were very different from each other in various times and circumstances, but the man has always been a man and the woman has always been a woman."
“Open marriage and free love, the emancipation of the woman, and the socializing of society, fail to take into account reality whether it be sound or sick. They all suffer from the illusion that by means of external measures, by means of abolishing old laws or implementing new laws, they can change human nature or... Continue Reading
Conquering Jealousy Through Christ: Our Example and Help in the Time of Need
If we are His children, we have Him, and whatever we have in this life besides is ultimately an expression of His sovereignty, wisdom, and love for us.
“We are unwilling to leave God to be the proprietor and do what he will with his own, and as a Creator to do what he pleases with his creatures. We assume a liberty to direct God what portions, when and how, he should bestow upon his creatures. We would not let him choose his... Continue Reading
What Was God Doing before Time?
It is an odd question but one that, I think, has an answer that leads to profound worship.
God, as eternal, unchanging, timeless, acts singularly and simply apart from any created conception of sequence since sequence involves change, development, growth. Such things belong to created beings, not to uncreated beings. And God is an uncreated being. So he cannot change nor work in sequence at least in ways that we conceive of sequence. ... Continue Reading
The Cost of the Kingdom
Jesus tells two short stories of men who found something of great value, and whose desire for that object was greater than any other they had.
Would you be willing to part with everything you prize—your reputation, your income, your accomplishments, your relationships, your comfort, or even you very life, if it meant the difference between being saved or damned? Geoffrey Chaucer wrote his famous Canterbury Tales in the 14th century. One of the stories in this narrative is the Knight’s... Continue Reading