Taking Back Christianese #5: “Just Ask Jesus into Your Heart”
Despite the association with modern day revival-style churches, this phrase actually has a long pedigree, even in Reformed circles.
In this way, as noted above, this phrase can actually backfire on itself. While intended to prevent false conversions, it can (if misused) actually lead to false conversions. People can think they are saved because they “asked Jesus into their heart” with no awareness of how to evaluate their own spiritual condition. Some of... Continue Reading
Should Christians Feel Guilty All the Time?
I’m convinced most serious Christians live their lives with an almost constant low-level sense of guilt.
Most of our low-level guilt falls under the ambiguous category of “not doing enough.” Look at the list above. None one of the items are necessarily sinful. They all deal with possible infractions, perceptions, and ways in which we’d like to do more. These are the hardest areas to deal with because no Christian, for... Continue Reading
Powerful Promises to Give Us Hope for Our Children
Let us pray regularly that Jesus would save each of our children, grandchildren and descendants and that each one would follow Jesus wholeheartedly as a disciple until the he returns.
Though Scripture doesn’t absolutely guarantee their salvation, God gives us many strong reasons to pray and hope for our children. Charles Spurgeon urged parents to pray Isaiah 59.21, which I have written in my prayer notebook at the top of the page of requests for my family: “And as for me, this is my covenant... Continue Reading
Masculinity and the Priority of Love
The characteristic quality of the true man of God is a Christlike love
In Ephesians 5, the apostle sounds two abiding keynotes, one for the woman and for the man. The primary element for the woman of God is submission, and I recognise that that must be carefully and scripturally defined and worked out. Paul, in this passage, then moves on to the keynote for the man. And what... Continue Reading
The Most Valuable Aim of Apologetics
Apologetics is to provide an answer to the critics of the Christian faith, to those who seek to undermine the rational basis for Christianity or who critique it
“The toughest three years of my life were my seminary years, because I was a zealous Christian studying in a citadel of unbelief. Every day, the precious doctrines of our faith were attacked viciously by my professors.” Exodus 3 narrates the well-known account of God’s revealing Himself to Moses in the burning bush and... Continue Reading
Can We Enjoy Heaven Knowing Loved Ones Are in Hell?
Many we love today will have an eternal experience of pain, torment, and separation
“However, those of us with non-believing family members and friends can find this certainty an area of intense struggle. Why? Because we know that not everyone will be there with us.” Heaven is far too perfect, far too sinless, far too other for us to imagine in our fallen minds. Our attempts to put... Continue Reading
The Patriarchy Movement: Five Areas of Grave Concern
Christian Patriarchy tends to be a man-made, law-based system
“This posts does not seek to trash the patriarchy movement or those found in it. Neither does it disagree with the biblical truths concerning headship, gender roles and attitudes towards authority. Rather it seeks to identify a number of issues that do great harm to those within the movement specifically and Christ’s Church as a... Continue Reading
Notes From The Didache On The Early Christian View Of Abortion
The Didache was not indifferent about abortion nor does it hesitate to list abortion (and infanticide) with other gross violations of the natural and moral law
The moral rigor of the Didache is also in contrast to the way some late-modern Christians speak about sexual ethics generally. The Didache unequivocally condemns sexual immorality. Again, it is hard to imagine the Didache countenancing the nomenclature, “gay Christian.” This much seems clear from the blanket condemnation of sexual immorality in 3:3. One... Continue Reading
In Praise of Heavy Providences
The Bible is full of reminders about how, in the call of God, things will be difficult rather than easy, complex rather than simple, strenuous rather than leisurely.
I share this story because I believe the American church desperately needs this perspective on life—the perspective captured in the profoundly simple hymn that sings, “This world is not my home, I’m just a passing through.” But by and large, the evangelical church in America sings, “This world is my home and here I’m putting... Continue Reading
Autopsy Of A Deceased Pastor
Many pastors are dead in their ministries; perhaps an autopsy of these “deaths” will help the church come to grips with the causes.
They had no defenders in the church. Imagine a dying person with no medical intervention. That person will die. Imagine pastors without members who will stand by these leaders. Imagine pastors where members are too cowardly to stand up to cartels. If you can imagine that, then you can imagine a dying pastor. By the way,... Continue Reading