I have never been a fan of Steve Brown, but one day, while driving and scanning for radio stations, I heard an interview with him in which he said something to this effect: "The church ought to be the best place for person who is homosexual and Christian to ‘come out.’ But, of course, it’s not.” I remember thinking that he was exactly right. In my view the PCA has a long way to go before it can provide the kind of pastoral ministry needed by those who struggle with the big sins, which are defined among us almost exclusively as sexual ones

Piper’s use of eternal regrets to get people to relieve suffering reminds me of evangelists I used to hear years ago. They would warn everyone that they were going to be miserable when they got to heaven when they realized that Uncle John and Aunt Mary weren’t there, and it would all be because they didn’t witness to them. Being miserable in heaven was the motivator used to get people to witness to others

My point is not that we should be constantly examining ourselves. The Puritans often said that for every one look you take at yourself, you should take ten looks to Christ. However, it is right that we lay our lives alongside that of our Savior and see, however dimly, the renewing work of the Holy Spirit in us.

I’m not pining for a return to the pillory, mind you. But at least with that instrument of shame, the personhood upon whom the public gaze was cast—flesh and blood, not an image, subject, not object—was manifest. In the age of the virtual, postmodern pillory, we need to consider when the images we circulate freely are images of the image of God, and treat them accordingly.

Listen carefully: Christianity is not first and foremost about our behavior, our obedience, our response, and our daily victory over sin—as important as all these are. It is not first and foremost about us at all–it is first and foremost about Jesus!   One of the chief vehicles for dishonesty in my own life has... Continue Reading

One of the more fascinating sections of the book is Cosmas’ account of when the flat-earthers and the round-earthers met in Alexandria for a debate. Each side presented arguments, counter-arguments, and even conducted experiments. Evidently Cosmas believed his side won. He reported to his mentor, “And it is the truth I speak, O most God-beloved Father, through the power of Christ they went away dumbfounded and sadly crestfallen, having been put to shame by our exposure of their fictions.”

We can put this kind of media event into perspective by noting that each such unearthing of non-canonical ancient Christian texts receives publicity in direct proportion to attention being given to particular controversial issues in the contemporary world.

Then he told me something that concerned me as his pastor. Mark said that he wished that he could be like his dad when it came to death. He explained that shortly before his death, his father had accepted Christ through the influence of a friend and had told Mark he was not scared to die. Mark said, “To be honest, Barry, I’m concerned about facing death.”

Privacy and solitude has just about vanished from our world and the strange thing is that we seem to love that fact. Moronic tweeting about routine daily activities, the constant rattle of texts, planes full of people who can barely wait for the wheels to touchdown before they need to switch on their iPhones: it is surely strange that the idea of being alone with one's thoughts for even a moment has now become something which seems to terrify people or at least be most undesirable

I do think the Gospel Coalition’s rallying behind complementarianism is troubling. It resembles the version of Calvinism that traffics among the young and restless — lots of talk of divine sovereignty, not so much about limited atonement. After all, that biblical teaching and those Reformed creeds can sound reactionary to modern ears and we don’t ever want to sound extreme