Living with Religious Scrupulosity or Moral OCD
Nobody warned me how obsessive-compulsive disorder can take the thing you care about most – your faith – and turn it against you.
This life demands more of us than we can imagine, but not more than we can bear. Because we don’t bear it alone. True conscience is not a hyper-individual inner experience, but a knowing with others, a cleaving to the wisdom of God’s Word and the witness of his body here on earth, the church.... Continue Reading
Jesus’s View on Biblical Sexual Ethics Has Not Shifted
Your shift of position on the issue of homosexual practice is to a view that Jesus would have treated as heretical.
Your change of position will not change God’s position. It will just lead to self-deception and deception of others. Face the fact that Jesus is the very last person in the world who would have given up a male-female prerequisite as foundational for sexual ethics. There was no more rigorous applier of the standard of... Continue Reading
Mourning has Broken (part 3 of 3)
For Job, the process of grieving begins with acceptance, not by way of resigning himself to fate but by faith that knows and trusts the God he revered.
The hope that is an anchor in the storm is not wishful thinking for a better place or a better day. It is the hope of the gospel, the same hope extended by Paul to the Thessalonians when he urged them not to grieve as the rest of men who had no hope. Paul explains... Continue Reading
Perseverance through Following a Simple Command
Remember Jesus Christ, Risen from the Dead
Life, relationships, teaching sound doctrine, practicing church discipline, etc. can present complex challenges. Pastors need to maintain the simple practice of remembering Christ as they engage knotty and complicated issues. The glory of Jesus and his resurrection outshines and outweighs the problems of this life. Just one glimpse of Him in glory repays the toils... Continue Reading
Wokeness and the Church
Although ethnic diversity in the local church is a wonderful thing, pastors and Christians must consider biblically the means by which that diversity comes about.
The ideology of Wokeness, built upon the foundation of Black Liberation Theology and Critical Theory, should be rejected in the church today. Though we should rejoice in ethnic diversity in the church as a beautiful overflow of the gospel which will be present throughout eternity, the means by which that diversity comes about in our... Continue Reading
How Were the Books of the Bible “Chosen”?
In a sense, one might say that the Gospels, and the rest of the New Testament, chose themselves.
Most people assume (even if they don’t realize it) that religious books are ultimately man-made enterprises. It’s always a group of humans somewhere that are imposing their religious views on others. And if the canon is merely the (arbitrary) choice of a bunch of humans, then it can be edited, reworked, rewritten, or even just... Continue Reading
Walking Wisely through Trials
The book of Job teaches us to fear the Lord, find hope in our friendship with God, and recognize our true foes.
As those who are united to Christ, by faith the friendship of God is a sure and steady source of comfort in the midst of suffering. But be encouraged, “For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too” (2 Corinthians 1:5). Suffering is incredibly difficult, but... Continue Reading
Four Essential Elements of Theology
Theology begins when the transcendent God reveals Himself to mankind.
These four essential elements of theology are at play whenever you do serious theological study. You may think “I have to examine what the text says” (vertical side) or “I need to think about how these texts fit together” (reflective side) or “I need to check my conclusion with the elders at my Church” (corporate... Continue Reading
When Knowledge Misses the Point
Little knowledge of God, of the nature of godliness, and of the principles of religion, with this wrong kind of zeal, have produced much damage to the gospel.
There are many who seek to know only or mainly so that they would know, and make others know that they know. In religion they are all notion without motion, having a head full of light and a heart void of all life. They talk all their religion and do not walk it. Their knowledge... Continue Reading
Of God’s Eternal Decree in Light of Four Commentaries on WCF 3.2. Have We Drifted?
The attention given to the Reformed doctrine of the divine decree is not attended to with the care it once was.
Perhaps the most distinguishing feature of Reformed theology is its doctrine Of God’s Eternal Decree. Whereas Rome and Protestant denominations can find substantive agreement on the Person of Christ, Theology Proper, and with varying degree formal agreement on the sacraments – when it come to the Reformed doctrine Of God’s Eternal Decree Trinitarian communions are... Continue Reading
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