Every leader can grow from criticism, regardless of source or intention….But that truth doesn’t let the one offering criticism off the hook. In 1 Thessalonians 5:11, Paul says, “Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.” The author of Hebrews says, “And let us consider how we... Continue Reading

If in humility we—Americans, moderns, Christians—reacquaint ourselves with an earth of the seventh day, in need of gardeners, namers, dominion makers, then perhaps we can avoid our great tower’s fall….For how, without knowing nature, can we know her laws, or know her God?   There is a capital in the east, a great city full... Continue Reading

In his magisterial ‘The City of God Against the Pagans’, interestingly, written not long after Rome had established Christianity as the official religion of the Empire (AD 380), Augustine rejects the idea that church and state should or could be combined. He lays out a Christian vision of the meaning and purpose of human history,... Continue Reading

Man is a worshipper who either worships the Creator-God, or Man worships what is not God, that which Paul characterizes as creation. And, when worship is false, that is, is directed toward the creation — idolatry results. The truth is exchanged for the lie. That false theology, according to Paul, correlates with unrighteous ethical conduct,... Continue Reading

Along with teaching about daily Christian living and ready preparedness for Jesus’s pending return, 1 Thessalonians also includes content on the Trinity and on prayer to this triune God. The letter (and its partner, 2 Thessalonians) are immersed in direct and indirect prayers. Moreover, the letter includes some of the New Testament’s most prominent examples... Continue Reading

EFS has overlooked that the blueprint of biblical ethics is not the ineffable eternal relations of the Trinity, but the word of our Lord who is one. “The Scriptures ground ethics upon metaphysics, for God’s supreme authority to command our trust and obedience derives from his supreme being – who and what he is.” There are no... Continue Reading

If transgenderism is related to the sin of envy, then genuine repentance can produce the virtue of contentment. Jeremiah Burroughs’ The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment helps us understand how contentment is the opposite of envy. Burroughs defines “contentment” as “the inward, quiet, gracious frame of spirit, freely submitting to and taking pleasure in God’s... Continue Reading

Sinful men and women are utterly powerless to turn to God except through the regenerative work of God’s Holy Spirit, yet this powerlessness is the result of their own sinful hearts. This led Fuller to address the role of the Spirit’s work in conversion. High Calvinists argued that if repentance and faith are ascribed by... Continue Reading

Following the scientific community’s widespread adoption of Darwinian evolutionary theory and the geological uniformitarianism of Charles Lyell in the nineteenth century, Christian scholars were divided into three camps. On the left were the theological Liberals (i.e., Modernists) who sought to shoehorn the rapidly changing scientific consensus into the Bible or otherwise reject the Bible writ... Continue Reading

Martha was the one rolling up her sleeves and making sure everyone had a good meal. Serving people is important work, but there was something more important taking place at Mary and Martha’s home, and Mary had figured this out. She was sitting at the feet of Jesus, getting to know him and learning from... Continue Reading