The easily offended heart is always reaching for the spotlight. Love reaches for the blanket instead, and it does so without needing anyone else to agree the offense was real, or small, or forgivable. Love just covers it and moves on.   I recently began reading The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas, and a line near the... Continue Reading

We are historical creatures, and we must steward our humanity by giving attention to history, recognizing that the world we see around us is not unattached from all that has come before it.   Should I be reading something else? The question rolled around my mind as I sat reading David McCullough’s 1776 while on... Continue Reading

Christians who are not rooted in God’s Word will eventually begin to see, feel, and live like the world around them. Those who let the Word of Christ dwell in them richly will discover increasing stability, joy, discernment, peace, and spiritual fruitfulness.   A tree can appear healthy for years while its root system is... Continue Reading

What matters most is to be where we bring God the most glory. And only God can know where we need to be to bring him the most glory.   The other day, I was reading the story of Gideon in Judges 7. I’ve read the story many times, and have always been taken by... Continue Reading

The reality is we all have “unpresentable parts”—parts of the body that are not evil but are to be “treated with greater modesty” (1 Corinthians 12:23). To call upon Christians—women and men—to cover up these parts is not cruel and unusual punishment. In truth, it’s an important way we honor God and love one another.... Continue Reading

“Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint” (Alexander Hamilton). This common idea was corollary of human depravity.   In “What the Founders Didn’t Trust,” Barton Swaim argued, as many of our posts have, that the depravity of man... Continue Reading

The Lord had made clear that the road from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth was paved with suffering, the pathway of the cross. It turned out pretty quickly that the life of the church was not going to be some fairytale honeymoon.    The honeymoon, at least proverbially, is one of the best... Continue Reading

God sees beauty beyond our marred natures, He sees possibility beyond our fractured circumstances, He sees ability beyond our broken bodies, and so He shapes it, He assembles it, and He polishes it into something wondrous, something worthy of His name.   In many of the great European palaces, you can find entire walls that... Continue Reading

Our spiritual gifts (1 Timothy 4:14) are not for our benefit; they’re for everybody except us. Our task is to serve those alongside us by doing well what we can do, in order to strengthen them in their faith and in their walk.   Having laid out the qualifications for the church ministry offices, Paul... Continue Reading

To watch a sheep wander toward a cliff and refuse to use the shepherd’s crook to pull them back is pastoral malpractice. The keys of the kingdom are heavy, and church censures are agonizingly painful for the elders who must administer them. Yet, they are a vital gift from our King—a spiritual immune system given... Continue Reading