Don’t Listen to Sermons
One of the ways that students try to short-circuit the learning process is by listening to sermons by well-known preachers
If you listen to sermons for personal edification, fine. But if you’re listening to sermons because you want to borrow someone else’s preaching mojo, then turn it off. Exegete the text, meditate upon it, read broadly to develop your own illustrations, and most importantly, be yourself. When students cross the threshold and enter the... Continue Reading
5 Reasons Why I Am Not a New Calvinist
There was something in Piper's comparison of the new and old that he missed: ecclesiology
To sum, I am not persuaded that we can have Calvinistic soteriology (or even a Calvinistic “big God”) without a Calvinistic church. To abstract theology from ecclesiology is a foreign concept in the minds of the Reformers. Therefore, as Geerhardus Vos said in another context, “To our taste the old wine is better.” (The Self-Disclosure... Continue Reading
Grace Frees You From Trying To Please Everybody
No matter how hard you try, no matter how much effort you put in, you won’t be good enough to meet the expectations and desires of other people.
You can stop trying to be everything to everybody. You can get off the exhausting treadmill of people pleasing. You can let criticisms roll off our backs. Why? Because your worth and identity and security doesn’t come from other people; it comes from God through Christ. Your security and identity is not tied to your... Continue Reading
The Goalposts Of Scripture Do Not Move, Or Change
Is the Bible consistent?
Recently, I heard a pastor say that “God is love.” Agreed. No argument there. Love is not only something that God does, but it is who He is. It is intrinsic to his nature. God is love = good doctrine. However in the next breath, this pastor suggested that because God is love, He would... Continue Reading
Former Mars Hill Church Worship Leader Luke Abrams to Current Members: Vote With Your Nickles and Noses
Luke Abrams has joined other former leaders who have gone public with significant concerns about the current direction of Mars Hill.
I think one of the distortions that Mark and the Exec Elders have bought into is that as long as there is a large and growing audience and healthy giving and service they have implicit support for where and how they’re leading. And there is frankly some truth to that, because as long as people... Continue Reading
On World Vision and the Gospel
World Vision, an evangelical relief organization, announced that they would now hire persons who are in same-sex marriages.
This is no surprise, on one level. The constellation of parachurch evangelical ministries founded after World War II have been running headlong, with some notable exceptions, toward the very mainline liberalism to which they were founded as alternatives. Some think if we can just barter away Christian orthodoxy fast enough we can catch the wave... Continue Reading
Extending Grace or Just Not Caring?
What happens when it is your pastor that is messy? What is this grace that we extend? What did it cost?
We must take a stand for truth, not allowing any assault on God’s people to continue. Because that’s what it is to disobey Scripture and keep a pastor who is not above reproach in office, an assault to Christ’s bride, the very people he is to serve. It’s easy to avoid this kind of mess... Continue Reading
Messages To Millennials (2): Church
Why should Millennials (and everyone else) value the visible church?
Americans are independent by inclination. Church growth experts tell new congregations to downplay their denominational identity in order to appeal to Americans, who tend to be suspicious of denominations. The corollary for individuals is the tendency of Americans to identify themselves as “spiritual” but to say that they are not interested in organized religion. American... Continue Reading
BioLogos, Theistic Evolution and the Pelagian Heresy
If it was wrong for Pelagius to assert that Adam’s sin and guilt was not transferred to all humans, how much greater an error is it to postulate that Adam never existed?
Assuming evolution to be true, and ignoring both the Scripture and science against it, his organization exists to attack the historical reality of a physical Adam. In 2010 BioLogos president Darrel Falk wrote (emphasis added): “Option #1 [that Adam and Eve are actual historical people] is the standard argument put forward by those who believe in a... Continue Reading
How Did Jesus Read the Old Testament?
10 ways to help us understand how Jesus would have understood the Old Testament to have been written to and about Himself
Jesus understood that the Old Testament saints were not–first and foremost–examples of moral uprightness for fallen sinners to emulate, but were themselves sinners who were looking forward to Him by faith (Heb. 11). He explained this to the Pharisees when He told them that “Abraham saw My day, and rejoiced to see it and was... Continue Reading