4 Ways We Go Wrong in Thinking about the Holy Spirit
The Holy Spirit is the easiest person of the Godhead to depersonalize—and not only because of cultural forces.
We know what a Father-Son relation is in human terms, but where does the Spirit fit? Mary has sometimes been given something close to the status of the third person in popular Roman Catholic piety. Some recent theologians have even referred to the Spirit as Mother to make the triad more resonant with our familial... Continue Reading
TULIP and Reformed Theology: Perseverance of the Saints
True Christians can have radical and serious falls but never total and final falls from grace.
The whole purpose of God’s election is to bring His people safely to heaven; therefore, what He starts He promises to finish. He not only initiates the Christian life, but the Holy Spirit is with us as the sanctifier, the convictor, and the helper to ensure our preservation. Writing to the Philippians, Paul says, “He... Continue Reading
LifeWay Research: Americans Are Fond of the Bible, Don’t Actually Read It
Overall, Americans seem to like the Bible but don’t have much urgency about reading it.
LifeWay Research surveyed 1,000 Americans about their views of the Bible and found significant splits in how familiar they are with the Christian scripture. One in five Americans, LifeWay Research found, has read through the Bible at least once. That includes 11 percent who’ve read the entire Bible once, and 9 percent who’ve read it... Continue Reading
A Match Made in Heaven
Why conservative evangelicals have lined up behind Trump
Evangelicals in the early republic nurtured a deep suspicion of an encroaching federal government, and many were happy to collaborate with heterodox politicians who felt the same way. Thomas Jefferson may have taken a razor to his personal copy of the Gospels, excising the tales of miracles, but he had friends among the Baptists, who... Continue Reading
How Do I Handle Life’s Upsets?
Spend Less Time on “Why” and More Time on “Who”
Someone we love gets sick. Why? Was it something they did? Something they didn’t do? In most cases, the answer is, “who knows?” Sickness is a part of the world as a result of the fall. It’s an upset that merely results from life in a broken world. Reframing an upset in this fashion helps... Continue Reading
Refusing to be Encouraged
There are times when we refuse to be encouraged or comforted or complimented.
But there is a sense in which we want to retain personal responsibility. Sure, Christ is the one who strengthens me. He is the one in whom I can all things. But I am the one doing those things. I chose to undertake them and to put out the effort to do them well. Like... Continue Reading
God Still Uses Ordinary Means And Ordinary Men
Through the ordinary means of ordinary men, God used preachers.
Through the ordinary means of ordinary men, God used preachers. These preachers gave them a reason to live. They freed them up to live by giving them a kingdom bigger than their own. We shrink-wrap our world and vision to the size of our lives. God used the prophets to increase their kingdom view–from the... Continue Reading
Glorious Traitors
We are born into the world “in Adam,” that is, as glorious traitors
“Total depravity does not mean that we are as bad as we can possibly be. After all, even Gentiles sometimes follow the dictates of their conscience (Rom. 2:14–16). Rather, it means that just as God’s image encompasses our whole self, the bondage of sin does as well.” Secular humanism has no way of explaining... Continue Reading
How to Fight for Faith in the Dark
Depression usually causes a person to feel only gloom and despair, no matter what they’re thinking
When all you feel is gloom, it becomes very hard to have hope, no matter what you read in Scripture. As someone who labored under a lot of depression and anxiety throughout my life, I know that it usually doesn’t help a depressed person to say, “Just believe God’s word more!” I’ve often said... Continue Reading
We Need More ‘Parlour Preachers’
The 19th-century English pastor and author Charles Bridges writes in his book The Christian Ministry that we need more “parlour preaching”
“Some today have used the term Gospel Fluency to describe a similar work (see Jeff Vanderstelt’s Gospel Fluency). In short, ones who are fluent in the gospel have their mother tongue in the gospel. They see and hear the world through the gospel filter and demonstrate an ability to speak the gospel into the everyday... Continue Reading