It is easy to get off base when popular human opinion or experience has become the reference point for interpreting life instead of the scriptures being the only rule of faith and practice. Unfortunately, some are using the Bible as merely one rule and not the only rule of faith and practice. It was for... Continue Reading

The new, highly secular “cancel culture” represents an extreme form of righteousness that has all the moral power of a certain kind of protestant Christianity, but none of the basic scaffolding of redemption on which such Christianity is built. And morality without forgiveness or redemption is a frightening, persecutory business.   Born in New Orleans... Continue Reading

After the death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ, the Church found itself having to answer questions about Jesus – questions that came not only from inquirers and skeptics outside the church but also from catechumens and laity within the church. How can we say both kinds of things about Jesus? Is He a human being?... Continue Reading

What we are left with, most often, is a succession of days that blur one into another. There’s not much that’s remarkable. Or is there? Are we just marking time until this pandemic ends? Were the Israelites just marking time until the first generation died off and the next could enter the Promised Land (where... Continue Reading

The problem of injustice is sin—and only sin—and that sin takes up residence in the human heart. There is no other remedy for the problem of sin than the heart-transforming gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. It is the height of pride for any professing believer in Christ to be so ungraciously arrogant... Continue Reading

My experiences with racism and homelessness prepared me to write Same Kind of Different as Me, a book about a homeless Southern black man who grew up in slave conditions in the 20th century. When I first undertook that project, I knew little about institutional racism. But studying Jim Crow and the sharecropper era gave me a new... Continue Reading

We can be conformed to this world in many ways. Even those who self-consciously reject worldly philosophies can sometimes slip into a more subtle, and therefore less noticeable, kind of conformity. When we do this, we can easily become an oblivious sheep in wolves’ clothing.   Do not be conformed to this world,  but be... Continue Reading

As believers, we are called by God to train our minds and hearts to firmly latch onto the biblical teaching that we are passing through this world as pilgrims and strangers. We can never allow ourselves to become comfortable here. We are merely sojourners passing through this world on our way to glory. From the... Continue Reading

It is interesting that when we read the Joseph story we often look for ways in which Joseph casts a long shadow into the New Testament in order to help us in some way or another to see Jesus.  But I wonder if that methodology is misplaced when looking at chapter forty-two.  In fact, I... Continue Reading

Paul is able to tell the Colossians, ‘Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh, I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church’ (Col 1.24). The apostle wasn’t for a moment suggesting there was something deficient in the... Continue Reading