The bibliophilic bounty makes choosing my top list difficult (in a fun way). I pulled it off by using my scientifically subjective algorithm of intuition about what books I think (1) serve the widest crowd, (2) offer the most unique insights, (3) and seem to promise the most enduring impact in the years ahead.  ... Continue Reading

Bond warns readers of the subtle ways that law creeps into the gospel, especially when pastors and Christian leaders make obedience a requirement for justifying grace. Bond adds, “Serious error arises when trusting and obeying are required as concurrent actions the sinner must do in the context of his justification.  Trusting is not sufficient –... Continue Reading

“In Why Not Same-Sex Marriage: A Manual for Defending Marriage Against Radical Deconstruction, Daniel Heimbach attempts to break through the barriers to communication by carefully examining arguments for SSM and posing reasoned objections to them. His goal is to “convince the undecided of the social necessity of keeping the nature, meaning, and structure of civil marriage... Continue Reading

“Every once in a while in the Samson story up pops a reminder of the fact that Samson is God’s man, set apart for God’s work, and it is God who is overruling the course of Samson’s actions and experience.  It is this part of the Samson story that gives us hope.  We too live... Continue Reading

There are dozens of questions like this in the book, each one answered with biblical insights and with good sense. I can’t imagine any Christian not being helped by this book. Adam and Ron are clear about the Bible’s prohibition of homosexual activity. They are informed on the latest scholarship. They are discerning when it... Continue Reading

In one section of his book, The Unsearchable Riches of Christ, Thomas Brooks gives some biblical examples of what it means to be weak in faith: those weak in faith have a fair amount of worldliness in their hearts, they fret and worry excessively about troubles and trials, they often think more of their sin... Continue Reading

Christians have always confessed that Christ is divine – not a being less than or subordinate to God, but God himself.  Heretics in the early church fought against this doctrine; modern-day cults like Jehovah’s Witnesses still rail against it.  But the deity of Christ is one of the fundamental truths of biblical religion.  Jaroslav Pelikan... Continue Reading

“Godly thinking leads to action, and Witmer outlines practical ways this happens. One is simply that we should express our admiration to others. But there is also a dark side to admiration that he addresses here as well. Witmer warns of the weed of covetousness, and points to the seed of contentment to replace it.... Continue Reading

“Sometimes we know exactly why we are in a trial. We knew we were sinning all along, and we were just hoping it wouldn’t catch up with us. It’s just a matter of paying the consequences for our actions. But other times, we may be the victims. There may not be a particular offense that... Continue Reading

There is absolutely zero evidence from early Christianity that Jesus was married.  Not a single historical source anywhere tells us such a thing. The closest any source comes to doing so is a fragmented portion of the third-century Gospel of Philip where we are told that Jesus kissed Mary “on the…”, but the text is... Continue Reading