The Assurance of Faith
People ask God to give them an experience which will confirm their faith, which will give them power, which will make them bold, which will, as some say, release the Spirit's energy into the world.
Today, through the impact of postmodernity, there is a new focus. It’s not as though the intellectual problems have disappeared or that the problems of guilt and sin have gone away. But the focus has shifted, and Christians now sense that they are weak, vulnerable, and powerless. They are being asked to hold on to... Continue Reading
What Does it Mean to be a Christian, Really?
It is easy to make up your own version of what it means to be a Christian that is not grounded in what Jesus really calls people to be.
The term “Christian” was first applied to followers of Jesus in Antioch. Before that, followers of Jesus were called disciples. Today, the term Christian is more predominantly used than disciple, but in the New Testament the two terms were synonymous. The New Testament story tells us that disciples were people who were called by Jesus... Continue Reading
Spokesmen for God
Prophetic ministry sought to soften hardened hearts and reclaim seared consciences by urging a return to the old paths.
When in an act of sovereign grace the Lord instituted His covenant with Israel, it was indisputable that He was the senior partner in the relationship. He alone had the right to dictate the terms on which fellowship with Him could be maintained. Consequently, if the people failed to adhere to His laws and commandments,... Continue Reading
Womanhood and the Story of the Gospel
Neither the “you can do it all” slogan nor the “you can challenge your biology” mantra is helping young adults wrestle with their gendered identity in a constructive way.
Defining womanhood is a great challenge in our day. Our children are exposed to differing concepts of gender early, shaping how they are growing up and thinking about their own sexuality. They are hearing conflicting messages about males and females being interchangeable and gender being maleable. Beyond the rejection of God and his created order,... Continue Reading
What Wifely Submission Does Not Mean
"Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord" (Ephesians 5:23).
All manner of interpretations abound, creating a fog of misunderstanding that puts stumbling blocks – some of which are quite dangerous – to obedience to this directive. In an attempt to let this verse shine with its Spirit-inspired brightness and remove such stumbling blocks, here are five statements clarifying what this verse does not mean. Though... Continue Reading
God’s Sovereignty in Dark Places
There are two claims to power and authority in the story recounted in Daniel 1: the human claim of power and authority and the divine claim of power and authority.
It is the Lord who turns the attention of the chief official to the Judahite boys, and it is the Lord who nourishes them and gives them physical and intellectual superiority over the rest of the captives. The two competing claims serve as a backdrop to the trial to which Daniel and the others commit... Continue Reading
The Cosmic Border Crisis
There is a classic Oneism, a cosmic border crisis where categories, concepts, and characteristics of creation are smuggled into our understanding of God.
Cosmopolitanism is the view that all humanity belongs to a single community. People belong to a world community more than to a local community. “The nebulous core shared by all cosmopolitan views is the idea that all human beings, regardless of their political affiliation, are (or can and should be) citizens in a single community.”... Continue Reading
How the Names of God Reveal the Nature of God
One of the best ways to learn about God is to focus on his names or titles in the Bible.
Here is a short sketch of several names of God in the Bible that reveal God’s nature. The names described here specifically reveal how the Father and Son relate to one another and how God is eternally beneficent and always shares of himself. One of the paradoxes of our faith is that God both... Continue Reading
Do Christians Ever Need to Choose the Lesser Sin?
The idea that we sometimes have to choose the lesser sin because all our choices are sinful is a dangerous and deeply harmful idea for the Christian life.
There are other supposed “impossible moral conflict” situations that people bring up, but sometimes those are artificial situations. I think we should realize that if we ever come to a difficult situation like that, 1 Corinthians 10:13 says God will provide a “way of escape,” a way not to give into the temptation. We... Continue Reading
Does the Apostles’ Creed Speak to Today’s Social Issues?
The Apostles’ Creed disciples in the gospel. It lays out a redemption grounded in the triune God and centered in the person and work of Jesus Christ.
So in arriving at positions on social issues, the Creed does not so much give us bread as it teaches us how to bake bread—by the light and heat of God’s Word, in His call to be holy unto Him, through living out the lordship of Jesus Christ. Christ gives us this reminder as His... Continue Reading