Our Cross
The pattern of Christian sanctification is connected to the experience of the cross – namely, our spiritual life is connected to suffering and weakness.
There are many who view sanctification as primarily a matter of human exertion. It is very natural for us to want to sanctify ourselves – to cultivate a sense of spiritual independence and self-sufficiency so that we can be in control of our spiritual lives. We are tempted to glorify the life of the victorious,... Continue Reading
Israel’s Golden Calf Idolatry
How Our Culture Perverts Our Understanding of Yahweh and His Ways
Did the Israelites really believe that something they built with their own hands turned the Nile to blood and destroyed all the firstborn of Egypt? Indeed, the Israelites seem less-than-intelligent to many modern readers. Were they that senseless, or are we as modern readers missing something when we read the story? “How could they... Continue Reading
It Pleased God…to Create
The creation is predicated upon the divine pleasure, or will, to create, as mysterious as that is to us.
Creation is, again, not necessary for God. God’s creative love is not ‘a love which is needy and in want’ and so ‘loves in such a way that it is subjected to the things it loves’; God loves not ‘out of compulsion of his needs’ but ‘out of the abundance of his generosity’ [quoting Augustine].... Continue Reading
Why Some Christians Embrace LGBT Theology
Jonathan Swift, author of “Gulliver’s Travels,” is often credited with saying that you can’t reason someone out of something they were never reasoned into.
HRC’s new guide is entitled “Coming Home to Evangelicalism and Self,” and purportedly offers ways to “help LGBTQ people live fully in their sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression, and to live fully in their religious, spiritual and cultural traditions.” The guide says that LGBTQ Christians “find it difficult to be fully themselves in... Continue Reading
Let the Wicked Return to the Lord
While we’re busy dividing “us” from “them” or “the righteous” from “the wicked,” it’s easy to miss one simple fact: we are the wicked.
Sometimes, we have a hard time thinking that God could ever reach a certain person. He is too bad or she is too far gone for God to reach, we think. This was how the Israelites thought of the gentile nations. Despite the fact that the call to minister to the nations was built into... Continue Reading
10 Things You Should Know about Christian Ethics
Christian ethics teaches us how to live.
Christian ethics teaches us how to live for the glory of God. The goal of ethics is to lead a life that glorifies God (“do all to the glory of God,” 1 Cor. 10:31). Such a life will have (1) a character that glorifies God (a Christ-like character), (2) results that glorify God (a life that bears abundant fruit... Continue Reading
Created to Enjoy God Forever
Man knows God in part by enjoying His presence, and this pleases God.
The biblical record of the creation of people by God is very different than what we see in other ancient Near Eastern accounts. In Genesis 1, mankind’s creation is the very crescendo of God’s creative activity, and so theologians call people the “crown of creation.” And, unlike any other element of creation, God makes humans... Continue Reading
Do We Have to Forgive Someone if They Don’t Repent?
We often think to ourselves, “I can’t forgive someone who won’t apologize.” “Forgive? Don’t you know what they did to me?” Or “How can I forget what they did?”
Forgiveness is not reconciliation or reuniting with that person. Reconciliation takes two parties to agree and come together. Forgiveness is an act of faith which is not necessarily forgetting. Here are three things to remember about forgiveness and why it is always necessary. This question is a perennial problem. Everyone has been hurt by... Continue Reading
Only for a Time
"As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away."
In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul contrasts three of the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit (i.e. tongues, prophecy and knowledge) with three of the ordinary gifts of the Spirit (i.e. faith, hope and love). He then says that the extraordinary gifts would cease and pass away, while the ordinary gifts would remain. Finally, Paul teaches that love is the greatest... Continue Reading
Enjoyment East of Eden
The book of Ecclesiastes can seem confusing and foreign, perhaps even a little scary in places.
A proper understanding of the language, message and purpose–together with its role and place in the Bible–teaches us that Ecclesiastes is focused on life in this fallen world, but in light of and with a view toward eternity. Here is a biblical worldview/theology of life—one that is characterized by the fear of the Lord and... Continue Reading