Nahum, Judgment, and Jesus
How do you tell others about bad news?
So when we read Nahum, we don’t need to focus on the bad news. There is always going to be bad news to share. Instead, we should see it as motivation to share the good news of the gospel—because the glorious light of the cross of Christ is the best news we have to share.... Continue Reading
Critique of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church Report on Republication
A review of the OPC report on Republication
“One would hope that a newly-appointed committee of the OPC would redress the grievous wrong that has been committed with regard to this committee’s reading of the work of Kline and restate the biblical teaching pertaining to the covenants, giving priory to Scripture rather than the Confession.” The Report on Republication written by a... Continue Reading
How The Church Today is Getting Discipleship Wrong
The way many leaders approach maturity is to assume that knowledge produces maturity. Since when?
Maturity takes time and is not linear. It would be great if there was instant maturity in faith and in life. But it never works that way. You can’t expect a 3 year old to have the maturity of a 13 year old, or expect a 23 year old to have the maturity of a... Continue Reading
How Christianity Flourishes
Christian mission has always thrived by surging in the margins and under the radar
“Christianity grows best under hardship. There are more Christians in China today, for instance, where free expression of faith is illegal, than the total population of the United States. Christianity is in decline in America, and Christendom is already in ruins in Europe, but in the East and in Africa, where it is new, a... Continue Reading
What Is Biblical Stewardship?
Fundamentally, stewardship is about exercising our God-given dominion over His creation
“A steward in the ancient world was a person who was given the responsibility and authority to rule over the affairs of the household. For example, the patriarch Joseph became a steward over Potiphar’s household: he managed everything in the household and was given the authority to rule over the house (Gen. 39:1–6a).” The... Continue Reading
When Healing Hurts
Being refined is painful but it's a good pain. It is a necessary pain. It's a pain that heals.
What that means is, when I ask God to transform me, to make me more like Christ, he doesn’t instantly change me. He strips away my sin through a multitude of circumstances and situations. For example, when I pray and ask God to make me patient, I don’t wake up the next morning a patient... Continue Reading
No Bucket List Required
Bucket-lists make sense—if you believe this world is all there is.
The reality of Jesus’ resurrection guarantees the resurrection of his people. And his miracles were little tasters of his ability to produce a world without sickness, death, disease, storms, cancer and every other flaw. Only he can make it right, and only he can take you there. Infinite beauty, infinite splendour, and infinite time to... Continue Reading
The Gospel Promise of God’s Performance
God presented a bilateral contract of law to us, and we have done nothing but transgressed the terms. However, God has made a unilateral covenant of grace for us.
All our spiritual blessings are the result of God’s unilateral, undeserved, unbreakable, one-way, covenant. The Law tells us how to perform to earn his favor. The Gospel tells us how he performs to favor us. In the Gospel, God is the Promise-Maker and Promise-Keeper; we are merely the unworthy and passive recipients. God is the one who makes and keeps covenant;... Continue Reading
Why Does the Universe Look So Old?
God did not create a universe that began in an infant or primordial state before maturing over billions of years, but one that began in a state of maturity.
When it was still young it already looked mature because this was God’s design. Indeed, this was the case with the first human being. “When he made Adam, Adam was not a fetus; Adam was a man; he had the appearance of a man. By our understanding that would’ve required time for Adam to get... Continue Reading
Remembering the Reformation but Celebrating What?
The problem is that the Reformation is only really congenial to modern American evangelicalism if it is reduced to little more than the doctrine of justification by grace through faith
“The truth is: The priorities and concerns of American evangelicalism have a highly tenuous and ambiguous relationship to those we find embodied in the confessions and catechisms of the Reformation and exemplified in the attitudes and actions of the Reformers.” October is the month of the year in which, as a Reformation specialist, I... Continue Reading