The Means of Sanctification
Five means which we can appropriate, and, by doing so, put ourselves in the way of the Spirit’s sovereign, sanctifying work
But while it’s unmistakable that the Spirit is the sovereign agent of sanctification, that fact in no way contradicts the reality that He effects this transformation through the use of means which the believer must appropriate. God has ordained that the Spirit accomplish this glorious work through means. So when Scripture commands us to work out our... Continue Reading
7 Toxic Ideas Polluting Your Mind
The worst kind of poison is the kind that poisons you without you realizing it.
Although the vast majority of Christians don’t realize it, we are being slowly yet steadily poisoned by virtually undetectable toxins. No, this isn’t about chemicals or biological agents; it’s ideas, worldviews, philosophies, and ideologies that we are unknowingly absorbing into our systems every day of life, and that are eating away at the vitals of... Continue Reading
Daddy Dearest: How Purity Culture Can Turn Fathers into Idols
Our pledges belong to the Heavenly Father, not our earthly ones.
The father’s pledge at Generations of Light (a site run by Lisa Wilson, whose husband, Randy, came up with the purity ball concept) refers to the father as “high priest in the home.” It places the responsibility for the daughter’s actions on her father. The problem with this idea is twofold. First, no one person can take... Continue Reading
Jennings and Garner On the PCA’s Response to Insider Movements
Nelson Jennings and David B. Garner debate the theology and missiology of Insider Movements
Ref21 Editors’ Note: The Presbyterian Church in America’s 42nd General Assembly will address the work of the Study Committee on Insider Movements (SCIM). For access to the SCIM reports of 2014, click here. However, given the global relevance of this question, in the next several weeks ahead of the Assembly, Rev. Nelson Jennings and Rev. David... Continue Reading
The Gospel Reformation Network Affirmations & Denials on the Gospel and Sanctification
The GRN addresses issues of Gospel preaching today which has been influenced by what has been called a “contemporary grace movement”
The Gospel reveals that God’s grace in Christ HAS delivered us from the persuasion of sin (effectual calling), the power of sin (regeneration), the penalty of sin (justification) and the position of sin (adoption) and furthermore, it IS delivering us from the practice of sin (sanctification) and gloriously one day it WILL deliver us from the presence of sin (glorification) through... Continue Reading
Iain Duguid Appointed to Westminster Seminary’s Old Testament Faculty
Dr. Duguid will begin teaching at Westminster part-time during the 2014-15 academic year, and will teach full-time in 2015-16
A native of Great Britain, he initially trained as an Electrical Engineer and served as a missionary in Liberia, West Africa, before studying for the ministry. He completed a Ph.D. in Old Testament at Cambridge University, and subsequently planted a church on an inner-city housing estate in Oxford, England. He has taught Hebrew and Old... Continue Reading
Abraham Kuyper Was A Heretic Too
When Kuyper referred to Modernism as “bewitchingly beautiful” and flirted with it
This is no ancillary, disputed, or adiaphora truth that Kuyper was fussing over. This is the definition of denying the truth of the gospel in the most pernicious way possible—much in the way some false teachers had in Corinth. And yet, in later years, we find this Kuyper at the center of one of the most powerful... Continue Reading
LGBTOMGWTFBBQs Diss Their Own Founding Fathers
The reason the word “homosexual” has to go is because the word “sex” is buried in it.
The sad truth is, when people set themselves against the laws of nature and nature’s God, they have to resort to linguistic games in a hopeless effort to deceive others, and maybe to deceive themselves. We all know what the civil wrongs movement is about: to abolish all sexual rules of conduct, uproot Judeo-Christian morality,... Continue Reading
Why Democracy Hasn’t Worked So Far in Africa
Africans, over millennia, developed their own traditions and are proud of them
Africans have had difficulty developing a sense of nationalism because the boundaries of their countries were determined by Europeans at the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885. Those lines cut across tribal and linguistic locations, so that tribes got separated and pieces of tribes got thrown in with other pieces of tribes, forming unnatural configurations. No African... Continue Reading
Pregnant Pakistani Woman Stoned To Death By Her Family
The family of a pregnant Pakistani woman beat her to death Tuesday (May 27) because she married the man she loved instead of her cousin
“I killed my daughter as she had insulted all of our family by marrying a man without our consent, and I have no regret over it,” police investigator Rana Mujahid quoted him as saying. Parveen was attacked as she and her husband, Mohammad Iqbal, arrived at the gates of the Lahore High Court. They went... Continue Reading