Jesus isn’t threatened by Christmas gifts. He doesn’t get better when we diminish or downplay them, either by eschewing them altogether or by contenting ourselves with gifts that are frugal, that cost us nearly nothing and really aren’t that good. We don’t threaten the wonder of the incarnation when we give nice gifts to the ones we love and when we look forward to receiving them. We don’t need to spiritualize these gifts by assuring ourselves that Jesus is the greatest gift of all.

But Christian doctrine also, I think, prompts us to discover our value in the lengths that our Triune God went to in order to rescue us from sin, death, and hell. This truth is captured by that gripping line in the nineteenth-century Christmas hymn O Holy Night: "He appeared, and the soul felt its worth." The worth discovered, or felt, by virtue of Christ's incarnation is the simple yet profound worth of being simply and profoundly loved by another. It is the recognition that "he" appeared not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many, of whom, for reasons I will never fully fathom, I am one.

It’s not abnormal to feel depressed at times. A bout with depression is less a clinical thing, and more a normal thing. That is not to say that everyone experiences the same level of depression, but everyone experiences some level of it. For the most part, depression is somewhat normal because we all live somewhere between Genesis 3 and Revelation 20. Since we are all fallen human beings living in fallen bodies on a fallen earth, then the presence of sorrow means that things are probably pretty normal. It just means that you’re alive.

In the 1st century, one heresy that crept into the church was Docetism. According to this teaching, Jesus only appeared to have a physical body. Thus there was no problem with His deity but a rejection of His humanity. This fit in well with the Gnostic idea that the physical and material was evil, and the metaphysical and immaterial was good. But the implications for the gospel are dire.

The Gospel declares us to be perfect. Our performance is over and graded, and now we perform because we desire to — we have new hearts. We can now relax in Christ as we labor to keep his good Law. We can enjoy his sovereign grace while we partner with the Holy Spirit to work out our salvation. The world and... Continue Reading

Do you see? Do you see that Isaiah is giving the answer to Tamar’s question? Do you see those for whom Jesus came? He came into this world in the womb of another virgin daughter of Israel. He came for all who have been broken, bowed, and afflicted. He came for those who have been abused, raped, and humbled. He calls to the broken-hearted, those with no strength, and those who have been the victims of every Amnon of this present world. His gospel is for the weak, the downtrodden – those who mourn.

We understand peace like no one else. We have experienced the greatest reconciliation this world has ever seen and it happened in our very own hearts. So, we must be known as peacemakers. Sometimes we think that reconciliation with people we have fought with is impossible, but God has enabled us through our experience of reconciliation to be able to do the impossible.

While there was some new information and it's encouraging that Drs. Ware and Grudem have changed their minds on eternal generation, the talks indicated no fundamental change on ESS/EFS/ERAS. In fact, Drs. Ware and Grudem doubled down in their insistence on ESS/EFS/ERAS and continued to accuse those who deny ESS/EFS/ERAS of being wrong on both the Trinity and the Bible.

“The New Testament mentions equality once or twice, but when it comes to social relationships, it is far more interested in concepts like oneness, commonness, partnership, union, and joint-inheritance. If you make all those passages about equality, you flatten their meaning.”   An Anglican man rang me out of the blue the other day to... Continue Reading

“In Scripture, memory has a similar formative power. The Bible depicts believers as being formed by their response to the revelation of God, and the divine Creator and Redeemer exhibits His holy character by His faithful remembering of the people whom He has created and promised to redeem.”   Memory of the past—whether corporate or... Continue Reading