Dealing with Doubt
Everyone, at some point in their life, will experience seasons of doubt.
If you are struggling with doubt, then you are a believer whom it bothers. This is a sign that God is working on you! If your doubt about God doesn’t bother you, your heart is most likely hardened and you may not even be a believer. But it could also be that you are not... Continue Reading
Antinomianism: Rhetoric, Extremes, and Safety
Avoiding two extremes in understanding Christians, faith, and works
For Paul, the idea that a Christian would still want to live in sin is paradoxical. Our very justification has given sin a death blow. There is a real sense in which as a Christian, I am no longer enslaved to sin. God has through the blood of Jesus redeemed me and has given me... Continue Reading
This Argument Has Reached Retirement Age
Answering Peter Enns on the supposed contradiction between Exodus 12:8-9 and Deuteronomy 16:5-7
Very simply, this proves my point. B-sh-l is a flexible, general, catch-all term. When you b-sh-l something with fire, it is called “roasting.” When you b-sh-l something in water (per Exodus), it is called “boiling.” It is a term that operates just as our English word “cook.” To “cook” something is to prepare it for human consumption.... Continue Reading
Cult of Personality: Lessons for Homeschoolers from Doug Phillips’ Ministry
The signs were there. But the will to see them was not.
Phillips was a master salesman. Promotions and propaganda were his trade. A “vision of victory” was his ware. Vision Forum offered a full-colored, glossy catalog that presented the pristine world of white, middle-class early America. His lectures would include outrageous claims of revival and a special calling from God for the audience because, well, they... Continue Reading
The Closing of Discussion in the Public Square: Bowing to the New Social Orthodoxy
Homosexualist advocates are driving out of the public square with abusive rhetoric and the teeth of "sexual orientation" laws anyone who calls into question their agenda
In most mainline seminaries today candidates for faculty positions who are known to have published in favor of the scriptural and orthodox position on male-female marriage will not be hired. It is even less likely that candidates for faculty positions in secular colleges and universities will be hired. After all, institutions of higher learning cannot... Continue Reading
What Led You To Become An Atheist? Some Surprising Answers
Surprising answers creating a completely unexpected composite sketch of American college-aged atheists
They felt their churches offered superficial answers to life’s difficult questions: Churches did not address questions like creation v evolution, sexuality, reliability of the Bible, purpose of life, etc. Messages were bland, shallow, irrelevant, and boring….Ages 14-17 were decisive: Most embraced unbelief in the high school years. What leads people away from religion and into atheism?... Continue Reading
Quarantine Laws and the Bible
As the Westminster Confession puts it, the “general equity” of the Old Testament law does inform us as Christians living under the New Covenant
I do think that it is important to remember that these quarantine laws were simply the application of another law recorded in Leviticus 19:18 — that every Israelite was to “love your neighbor as yourself, I am the Lord.” The royal law of Christ was not new when he gave it. Christ was drawing this... Continue Reading
Does Spiritual Formation Work? Answers from Haggai
“Spiritual formation” is a hot topic today. But does it work? The Old Testament prophet Haggai would answer no
The solution to our spiritual disease is not spiritual formation. The change we really need is a new heart and the “health” of Jesus Christ. Perfect attendance to spiritual practices does not overcome our sinful nature — that requires the grace of God and the blood of Jesus Christ. “Spiritual formation” is a hot... Continue Reading
10 Things That We Hate About Bad ‘Leaders’
Have you ever found that you look to the person in charge and think, “How on Earth did they get that role?”
We have all heard of the Peter Principle – namely that people get promoted to the level of his or her incompetence. This may well give us an insight into why organizations can be bereft of leadership. But poor leaders are not just incompetent, they can be downright destructive. They are often driven by self-serving... Continue Reading
Good News For The Naked Public University
Christian study centers are emerging from the epistemological rubble of our naked public universities
We noted together that universities specialize in small and medium-sized questions, and have largely removed the big questions from consideration, except in philosophy or perhaps classics. The logic of academic specialization means that we have our disciplinary logics, ground rules, and accepted theories that define what we count as proper. Academics have no higher allegiance... Continue Reading