Ms. Bourke and Mr. Benatar do share something in common, they’re academics, people who live a life apart–as separate from the rest of us as any cloistered pair has ever been, even though they are physically separated by a continent. (The reviewer resides in London, the author of the book, in South Africa.) They live... Continue Reading

These devotional times don’t have to be just for families with children either. Anyone who shares life with other people could do it. Christian housemates, empty nesters, and married couples without children could consider committing to a regular household devotional gathering like this.    A couple of years ago I had a nagging feeling that... Continue Reading

Ministry will break you. It will break your self-reliance, your expectations, your emotional and mental balance, and it will break your heart, over and over again. And all of this is good. Ministry is never the making of you, if “you” is a successful, fruitful version of the sinner who started out in the pastorate.   ... Continue Reading

“Supported and animated by this love [for Christ], he [Paul] exerted himself to the utmost, in promoting the knowledge of Him whom he loved, and bearing testimony of His power and grace. Nothing could dishearted, or weary or terrify, or bribe him from his duty: and this must and will be universally the leading principle... Continue Reading

Heaven without Transformation I think there are two main misunderstandings people have of the central idea of reformation with which Luther and the Reformers started. The first is that justification is abstracted from the person of Christ. The problem there is that I might hear a message of salvation saying You can have righteousness and assume that... Continue Reading

“The American religious terrain, plowed deep by the soulful individualism of Ralph Waldo Emerson, was fertile soil for a high anthropology (which is to say, an optimistic theology of human capacity.) As many New Thought authors worked inside a Christian framework, they explored “salvation” not as an act imposed from above by God, but rather... Continue Reading

Since God’s triunity is bundled together with the gospel, it is the foundation of the spiritual life of every believer. The more you understand the deep structure of the spiritual reality you experience in Christ and the Spirit, the more you understand and are experiencing the deep things of God for us. If you think... Continue Reading

At the heart of this calling is the need to prepare a generation of Christians to think Christianly, to engage the academy and the culture, to serve society, and to renew the connection with the church and its mission. To do so, the breadth and the depth of the Christian tradition will need to be... Continue Reading

“Born at Uechteritz, Germany, from a schoolmaster and organist, Neumeister studied theology and poetry at the University of Leipzig. One of the main subjects of discussion around that time was the recent visit of the popular lecturer August Hermann Francke and his subsequent expulsion from Saxony due to the disputes he generated.”   Erdmann Neumeister... Continue Reading

The message of “Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2) is the greatest paradox in the history of the world. It defies all human wisdom. It is also the most profound, powerful and important truth in the world: it is “the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 1:24). The man... Continue Reading