Jesus: Baptism Is Death
What is there about baptism that lends it to being used as a figure for death?
Circumcision was an illustration of our inability to save ourselves. We need God to save us. We need bloodshed to save us. We need a new (circumcised) heart. We need a new life. Only God gives new life, true faith, the Savior, and salvation. Baptism illustrates those very same truths. We do not baptize ourselves.... Continue Reading
‘Where Two or More are Gathered’ Doesn’t Make a Church
The context has everything to do with how the church operates – but not in the sense it is often conveyed.
What people want this verse to say is that any time two or more Christians are gathered, there’s a church, because Jesus is in their midst. On a closer examination of the whole passage, we find this text to specifically deal with the practice of church discipline. I can’t recall the number of times I’ve... Continue Reading
Do You Struggle With Unbelief? God Has Good News For You…
Do you struggle with unbelief? Ask Jesus for more faith! He’s just waiting to give it to you.
All of us have to fight the good fight of faith. That’s the Christian life. Most of us struggle to have faith at times. We have an enemy who challenges our faith every day. We need to cling to God’s word and humble ourselves, cast our anxieties on Jesus and ask him for more faith.... Continue Reading
Thinking Like Jesus
The world has never experienced such sound thinking as was manifested in the mind of Christ
“I do not think for a moment that any of us, as long as sin is in us, will never become perfect in our reasoning. Sin prejudices us against the law of God for as long as we live, and we have to fight to overcome these basic distortions of the truth of God.” ... Continue Reading
The Apostle’s Creed: The Third Day He Rose Again From the Dead
“Progressive” Christians who deny the Resurrection deny the gospel and do not confess a true faith
“If the resurrection is part of such a brief presentation of the Gospel in 1 Corinthians 15, then it also stands, systematically, that it is key to our understanding of who Jesus is and what He did while on earth: our Christology.” The Apostles’ Creed has long been admired, memorized, and confessed in worship... Continue Reading
Themes in Puritan Theology: Creation and Providence
Let’s open up the external work of God in creation and providence, respectively, according to the Puritans
First, God made all things out of nothing and all very good. William Ames (The Marrow of Sacred Divinity, 1627) observes that creation “respects the whole world, that is, whatsoever doth exist besides God.” He created, notes Thomas Watson, ex nihilo, “without any pre-existent matter . . . out of the womb of nothing” and... Continue Reading
Reading The Word
One of the surest ways to misinterpret a document is to disregard the background in which it was written
“The main thrust of WLC 156 is not the limitation on who can read Scripture publicly, but the duty of all to read Scripture privately and with their family. Here, again, we see that the historical background to the Westminster Assembly provides insight into why this portion of the answer is given such prominence.” ... Continue Reading
4 Tips for Reading the Bible When It’s Difficult
The Bible can be understood by anyone with energy, patience, and wise instruction
“It has often been said that the Bible is more like a library than a book. This is an important point. It was written over twelve centuries with many writers, under many kings of Israel, as well as during exile under three pagan empires.” One of the difficulties of reading the Bible is the... Continue Reading
Your Morning Will Come
No one is better equipped to speak to our fears than Jesus Christ
“One morning, when my daughter was so weak from battling cancer that she could not walk, and our family was more exhausted than we have ever been, my wife read a Charles Spurgeon quote to me from the book Beside Still Waters. She read it through tears. They were tears of sorrow, tears of comfort,... Continue Reading
What Genesis 1:1 Teaches us About Our Sexuality
You must begin by understanding the importance, the life-shaping significance, of the first four words of the Bible: “In the beginning, God” (Gen. 1:1)
With those words everything in life is given its shape, purpose, and meaning. But for the purpose of the topic of sex, these words do something important. They destroy the validity of dividing life into spiritual and secular. This division has opened to us doors of danger as we think about sex. It’s allowed us... Continue Reading