As Ecclesiastes says, “there is nothing new under the sun.” There is always a tendency to “hedge” God’s law. There is always a trend towards self-righteousness. We want rules that are easy to follow, check lists with bite-sized pieces of law that we can obey and feel good about ourselves and how we match up... Continue Reading

We’ve heard well-meaning, but cautious lovers of the gospel say that the cause of the unborn is too political, that it casts a harmful pall over the church, damaging gospel witness. To be sure, politics has not always brought out the best of God’s people. A renewed embrace of the grace-truth tension is needed. And... Continue Reading

We all need to remember that we never grieve alone. Because God is a God of tender mercy and grace, he weeps for and with his people. He always gives you the grace you need to do what he calls you to do in the places where he leads you. He is the God of... Continue Reading

So no, I am not advocating gluttony here, just a Christward self-disregard, a godly un-self-consciousness. I am praying for an increase in the tribe of self-forgetful pastors — if not all-out dorky ones — with platforms thrust upon them genuinely “aw shucks”-wise, men who will love not their images even unto death. Men who at... Continue Reading

There can be no doubt that evolution can be squared with belief in some deity, but not the God who revealed himself in the Bible, including the first chapters of Genesis. Krattenmaker asserts that “it is more than possible to accept the validity of evolution and believe in God’s role in creation at the same time.” Well,... Continue Reading

For the first time, the federal government will provide an “affordability tax credit” to millions of low-income and middle-income individuals and families to help subsidize the purchase of health plans on the exchanges. By allowing health insurers that sell plans on many state exchanges to cover abortion while remaining eligible for federal subsidies, Obamacare opens... Continue Reading

First, I want to be clear that the authority for my views on marriage and sexuality is Scripture. Although my original article drew from legal, sociological, and rational data, all of it reasoned outward from a point of origination in God’s Word. The following response will manifest that source of divine revelation even more emphatically... Continue Reading

Jesus wants to introduce you to something that is far more joyful and ecstatic than any marriage or sexual experience. Something to which sex points. In so doing, he redeems sex and marriage by putting them in their proper place. Marriage and sex are temporary blessings that pass away with the old order of things... Continue Reading

Urban church plants abound, books with titles like For the City or Why Cities Matter multiply, and conferences get titles like “Urban Mission: How to Flourish Your City with the Gospel.” All of this may be the start of a real demographic shift in the American church. Or it might just be a passing fad.... Continue Reading

I was once asked by a visitor what my church had to offer for his children that other churches did not have.  I told him that we did not have many activities for the youth (we did have some), but one thing that our church could offer him was that if he adopted covenant theology,... Continue Reading