To Gain the World and Lose Your Soul
To lose your soul by thoughtlessness is an easy road and natural. To keep one’s soul in following Jesus to our crosses and beyond — this is supernatural.
You will never obtain anything in this world more valuable than what you lose by forfeiting your soul. Yet, like a madman who has escaped from the asylum, we scour the middle of the freeway looking for lost pennies. What are these compared with our very lives? What are a few gold coins compared to... Continue Reading
Cultural Christianity Is Not Enough
Paying homage to Christianity will not save conservativism.
The problem is paying homage to Christianity while denying the truth of its teaching. That is what public intellectuals like Jordan Peterson or Douglas Murray do. Even when you find Peterson speaking positively about the Bible, it is as a Jungian who reduces the Bible to a grouping of myths that represent archetypes found in... Continue Reading
Polity Protects People from Pragmatism
A robust commitment to follow biblical polity is both relational and loving. The rules we have agreed to follow help us to minister faithfully together and encourage shepherding and discipleship.
In the PCA, we have rules to prevent us from taking that easy, pragmatic approach. In the PCA we have all agreed on a “due process” to deal with problem people (see BCO 29ff). This procedural, constitutional method is both relational and loving, and it is biblical (cf. Matthew 18:15ff). It preserves the rights even of... Continue Reading
The “Simple” and the Lord’s Supper
Perhaps what gets labelled “youth work” in most churches is better understood as preparing young people to come to the Lord’s Table, “making wise the simple” (Psalm 19:7).
Like any practice, catechesis can develop in unhealthy directions. It could end up fostering a “worksy” understanding of the gospel, in which you’ve got to be old enough, mature enough, “good enough” to belong to Christ. This is the exact opposite of what the gospel is saying. But if we ignore this category of “the... Continue Reading
The Glorious Privilege of Spiritual Adoption
If you are a child of the Father, it's good, and it will only get better soon.
Each day and experience is designed by our Father to “work together for good” and accomplish His purpose to “conform us to the image of His Son.” But the most dramatic metamorphosis will come soon when we are transported out of this sin-wrecked place, either through death or Christ’s soon-coming. John states that “we do... Continue Reading
Why Many New Pastors Don’t Survive Their First Five Years—and How We Can Fix This
Newer pastors burnout generally not because regular preaching and teaching are more difficult than they expected, but because these activities too often happen under the stress of sharp conflict.
If you think you might be called to pastoral ministry or if you’re struggling in your current pastoral assignment, don’t let fear sidetrack that calling. Look to all the privileges and benefits of pastoring while also acknowledging that hard things will happen. You’re not afraid of hard things, I know, but the unexpected hard things could... Continue Reading
Growing in Holiness
Trusting Christ means being immersed in his Word, constant in prayer, never neglecting the fellowship and care of other Christians, and it means battling against the sins of our flesh.
We are weak and unable. As much as we strive forward, we fall back. We try to be perfect right now, not realizing that in his goodness and wisdom God is patiently transforming us throughout this life—it is a process that takes time and dependence on God, with patience and the faith that unites us... Continue Reading
How the Side B Project Failed
Churches should take it upon themselves to befriend and compassionately encourage Christians with these struggles, just as they would befriend and encourage any Christian who carries a solitary sorrow.
At this point in time, one may legitimately ask just how sharp the dividing line remains between “Side A” and “Side B,” when it seems almost no expression of gay identity is out of bounds for Side B Christians. This question was openly raised in a Religion News report last year, in which Collins suggested... Continue Reading
We’re All Postmoderns Now
Our society may embrace a cavalier attitude toward truth, but Christians must refuse to play the game.
Within such a post-truth society, the most countercultural thing that Christians can do is refuse to play the game. Whatever the world may pretend, we know that reality is a very stubborn thing, and it can only be evaded, not twisted into whatever shape we wish. Thus, even if others insist on casually lying to... Continue Reading
A Plea for the Pro-life Movement
Book: 'Evangelicals and Abortion' argues that society must affirm the dignity of human life before pro-life reform is possible.
Fraser and his wife have been involved with crisis pregnancy centers, and he cites Care Net (which operates pregnancy centers in the United States), Avail NYC in New York, and ProGrace in Wheaton, Ill. as models for approaching abortion at the level of the individual heart. “This is where lives are being saved and the... Continue Reading
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