The Danger of Biblicism
By “biblicism” I mean an over-rigid adherence to certain Bible texts or teachings at the expense of context and other biblical teachings.
Yes, the Bible is the Christian’s highest authority in all of life, and yes, Scripture is sufficient for doctrine and life. But that doesn’t mean we should ignore general revelation. It doesn’t mean that there’s a Bible verse for everything. It doesn’t mean we can ignore context and flatten out the Bible. It doesn’t mean... Continue Reading
Echoes of Scripture in the Gospels
The Old Testament surfaces on virtually every page of the New Testament; it speaks with divine authority , and like the NT, it is the very word of God.
The NT writers, to be sure, are largely silent concerning the degree to which the OT authors were aware and conscious of the One to whom they were pointing. They are generally content to affirm that the OT authors pointed to Christ. The NT writers are more concerned to insist that the project of “reading backwards” is... Continue Reading
Why Does God Make Us Wait?
To combat spiritual impatience, we need to pray for more hope and patience.
God wasn’t obligated to make any good promises to sinners like us. But in his sovereign and free mercy, he did promise salvation and all the blessings that go with it. Therefore, it’s fitting and right to be patient and to say that his timing is best. And we put on “the hope of salvation as a... Continue Reading
Life After the Dash from Zero to 2 Billion
A Review of Two Recent Books on Smartphones and Social Media.
None of us can miss the most striking change in material culture in our lifetime. In a single decade we have dashed from a world with zero smartphones (if you don’t count the clunky pre-2007 ancestors of the iPhone) to a world with 2 billion of them. We’ve taken a kind of cross-cultural trip to a... Continue Reading
Who Killed The Contemporary Christian Music Industry?
The descent of CCM is a reflection of America's waning interest in Christianity as a whole.
The birth of CCM can be traced back to the Jesus Movement of the late 1960s, and was shepherded through its infancy by God-fearing hippies like Larry Norman. But it didn’t really take off until more than a decade later, as a result of early pioneers like Andrae Crouch and Amy Grant. Grant was especially... Continue Reading
Regeneration, Christian Graces, and Assurance of Salvation (Gurnall)
Sometimes a Christian sees one of his graces more than another, but it doesn’t mean that other graces aren’t there.
Why is this important? Well, as Gurnall noted, knowing this fact gives relief to the Christian when he’s in doubt of his salvation. Just because a Christian can’t immediately discern godly fear doesn’t mean he should “unsaint” himself. If you don’t have godly fear but you do have a sincere desire to please him, be... Continue Reading
Why C. S. Lewis’ ‘Mere Christianity’ Received Bad Reviews
Despite the book's influence today, early reviewers felt little fondness for Lewis's work or his vision of Christianity.
Traditional Christians (over against those who identified as modernists) were enthusiastic about the book because of the winsome way it made a case for Christianity. But “Progressive Protestants,” Marsden writes, “were alarmed at ‘backward-looking Christianity.'” They took aim at Lewis for making a winsome case that undid “centuries of theological progress.” Mere Christianity is... Continue Reading
The 4 Gods of the Public Education System
In his book The End of Education: Redefining the Value of School, former NYU professor Neil Postman names the four “gods” that he believes America’s children are being taught to worship within the walls of today’s public schools.
In my experience, the typical man of today does not question the validity of at least three of these gods, and more often than not, willingly accepts all four. These gods have become axioms of modern education—which, by the way, significantly diverge from the educational philosophy that prevailed in the West for over 2,000 years—and... Continue Reading
Overcoming The Stain of Racism
"We’ve inherited the systems stained by racism because of racialization, even as our hearts are genuinely transformed by the gospel."
“Dr. Mohler preached through Genesis 11 during one of our chapels, and what he said in that message verbatim was we have a ‘stain of racism.’ So, following the chapel service in our faculty meeting, there were some other discussions about it, and I just felt this unrest: ‘Yeah, we know the stain is there,... Continue Reading
Justifying a Non-Repeatable Justification
Justifying a Non-Repeatable JustificationVos' reasons for the belief that justification is non-repeatable are as follows
One might say that it is an absurd idea that future sins, which are not yet committed, would be forgiven. But this idea contains nothing absurd if one only considers that for the Judge who pronounces forgiveness, the record of sins, their guilt, does not lie hidden in the darkness of the future but in... Continue Reading
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