The Face in the Mirror
When it comes to owning our sins, we are quick to look everywhere else.
Recognize that you are your own worst enemy. If you can acknowledge this truth, you’ll make greater progress in your growth in grace. As a pastor I regularly listened to people give all sorts of reasons and excuses for their sinful conduct. As a parent, I have listened to my children blame everyone else... Continue Reading
Learning and Doing in Times of Crisis
Carrying on in difficult times.
The great Christian apologist, author, and lecturer, C. S. Lewis, wrote during periods of hardship and upheaval, especially during the Second World War and the onset of the atomic age and the Cold War. He had to learn how to deal with changing circumstances, and he sought to convey some keys truths on this to... Continue Reading
On Stumbling
What is the difference between one who betrays, one who denies, and a stumbler?
We have a lesson to learn from Peter. It is not our resolve that wins the day, though we should have resolve. No. We should be more humble. It is the resolve of Christ to intercede for us so that our faith will not fail that causes us to persevere. Now as they were eating, He said,... Continue Reading
Prayer: God’s Daily Test
What is being revealed, refined, and reinforced in our prayer lives?
God’s testing reveals before Creator and creature what’s really in our hearts. God’s testing refines our faith, purging away that which would hinder it. God’s testing reinforces our faith, strengthening our hearts. I have some biblical tension for you to hold in your life that gets to the heart of prayer. Are you ready for it? Perhaps you should pray... Continue Reading
Natural, Secular, Worldly—Why Does a Christian Theologian Use These Words Positively?
God has prepared many good works for us to do, and you can’t do good works if you don’t know how the world works.
I advocate that we live Christian lives in the secular world. To do so requires mastery and competence of secular disciplines, the workings of the world, things over which Christians have no distinctive competence. Yet we are to direct these penultimate activities ultimately toward redemptive ends. As a writer, it is a joy when... Continue Reading
Dear Pastor, May My Child Take The Lord’s Supper?
The Lord’s Supper is for those who readily confess their sin and know their need of a Savior.
The Table is indeed for sinners, but for sinners who are willing to repent of their sin and come to Christ where forgiveness is found. John’s warning in his first epistle applies nicely to this matter of self-examination, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us”... Continue Reading
Five Reasons Christians Give Bad Advice
We must thoughtfully examine our advice before delivering it.
We aren’t always clear in our own minds if the advice we’re offering is biblically informed or culturally conditioned. This is perhaps especially true for conservative Christianity or Evangelicalism. The areas of sex and politics are obvious examples. Aspects of our Christian culture are very often mere artefacts of another culture. Like the British museum,... Continue Reading
What Is the Difference Between God’s Mission and Christian Witness?
God’s mission that we participate in as Christians through the witness of Christ.
Christian witness is the church commissioned by Christ, sent out, empowered by the Holy Spirit to speak about what God is doing. Witnessing is to speak of Christ and his gospel truth, salvation in Christ alone, to speak about God—the only true God—and his truth claims in Scripture, and to speak to sinners and to... Continue Reading
Did the Son of God Leave Heaven When He Came to Earth?
We don’t need the Son of God leaving heaven for earth in order for the incarnation to be worth singing about.
How, then, can Christ be with his people always and everywhere, to the end of the age? The answer is that the divine nature, even when joined to a human nature, is not circumscribed by that human nature but exists outside (extra) of it. As the Heidelberg Catechism teaches, “Since divinity is not limited and... Continue Reading
Limited Atonement as the Theology of Christmas
The Incarnation—God becoming flesh—was the beginning of a divine rescue mission.
One of the clear doctrines highlighted and emphasized at Christmas for obvious reasons is the doctrine of the incarnation. However, the doctrine of God taking upon himself human flesh in the person of Christ is not an isolated doctrine. Many people perhaps have not paused to consider the connection between the incarnation of Jesus and... Continue Reading
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- …
- 1540
- Next Page »