God wants his people to know that we are part of his body. This is true even for the youngest members of Christ’s church. Long before they publicly profess their faith those baptized in infancy are part of Christ’s church and covenant. Baptized infants aren’t future church members but actual church members.   In places... Continue Reading

In season and out of season he met his engagements. His custom was to catechize at regular periods, throughout his charge, and not only the children but also the heads of families—households. This was done by announcing from the pulpit certain days in the week, to meet those of a particular district, at a place... Continue Reading

Indwelling sin is compared to a person, a living person, called “the old man,” with his faculties and properties, his wisdom, craft, subtlety, strength; this, says the apostle, must be killed, put to death, mortified—that is, have its power, life, vigor, and strength to produce its effects taken away by the Spirit. It is, indeed,... Continue Reading

When a wife presses into the most difficult aspects of Christian obedience, her life will shout to her sons and daughters that Jesus is telling the truth. In the Christian life, spontaneously “feeling like” doing something is not a prerequisite for actually doing it — trusting God’s promises is. And his word assures us that... Continue Reading

Truth Be Told is excellent for those grappling with anxiety about our culture’s loss of objectivity, refocusing our energy towards the real goal of living with integrity as people of truth. This is a welcome move away from handwringing about our generation’s “feelings over facts” tendencies and gives us something we can work on: our... Continue Reading

Anger is right when we respond to the right things in the right way. It is the appropriate response to sin and injustice. What provokes Jesus’ outburst in Luke 11 is the hypocrisy of the religious leaders and the way they prevent other people coming to God. The climax of his tirade is: “Woe to... Continue Reading

Even though we wandered from God, He has made a way through Christ’s sacrifice and the Spirit’s indwelling for us to be fully restored to the Manufacturer’s original design. We will experience this through gradual, daily transformation in this life (and the more we cooperate, the greater will be that growth) and then one day... Continue Reading

There is much that matters to the Christian life, but nothing more so than our willingness to see what lies ahead through the eyes of the one who made it from before the foundation of the world. Our call to not be anxious or worried about the circumstances of life is born out of our... Continue Reading

In my new book, God’s Crime Scene: A Cold-Case Detective Examines the Evidence for A Divinely Created Universe, I take this very approach. It’s reasonable to build a case for an extraordinary claim (the existence of God) with rather “ordinary” circumstantial evidence (particularly when this cosmological, biological, mental and moral evidence is cumulative in nature). In the... Continue Reading

Wine can only be furnished in times of stability. Poignantly, wine then represents rest. Wine needs deep roots, hardy vines, and vats stored with the leisure to ferment. The Mosaic Law seems at first to overlook the wine offering, but as the promised Canaan rest drew near, wine took a more prominent role in the... Continue Reading