After all, something isn’t true just because a church father says it, and for that matter, even the Nicene Creed doesn’t carry the same weight of authority as the Bible. Why, then, should we pay attention to the non-inspired writers of a period in the distant past, when we could be focusing on the Bible... Continue Reading

Presbyterian theologian T. David Gordon captures the shift with an anecdote about a theology student at a Protestant seminary puzzled by a professor’s reference to Luther’s “A Mighty Fortress.” Musically, evangelicals are all charismatics now. Author’s note: In what follows, I draw heavily on conversations with, as well as lectures and interviews by Ken Myers... Continue Reading

In our multi-cultural, all-is-one, anything-goes world, the distinction between the Truth and the Lie clearly has to go! The Church must understand the present struggle between the Gospel and the growing, multi-faceted opposition to it in our time. In 1991, returning to the States after seventeen years in France, I was shocked to discover a... Continue Reading

Owing to the wide usage of the “spiritual” words, way beyond NT usage, the language of “spiritual disciplines” has likewise extended itself into arenas that are bound to make those who love the gospel more than a little nervous. Almost two decades ago I wrote an essay titled “When Is Spirituality Spiritual? Reflections on Some... Continue Reading

When the prophet Isaiah told King Hezekiah that his royal house would fall and his sons yet-unborn would be eunuchs in the palace of Babylon, he muttered an Amen. “For he thought, ‘Why not, if there will be peace and security in my days?’” (2 Kings 20:19) It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Until... Continue Reading

Without the resurrection pointing us to eternal life, Christians will lose hope to persevere to the end and will fail to properly align life’s realities with expectations. In his new book Forever: Why You Can’t Live Without It, Paul Tripp does a fantastic job of explaining why believers and nonbelievers alike misunderstand what Christianity is... Continue Reading

But in the South, due in part to the influence of Robert L. Dabney, literal approaches continued to have a sizeable constituency. Here I would observe that the southern Presbyterians really did not engage the issues of faith and science in the same depth that some of their northern colleagues did (e.g., there was no... Continue Reading

In New Jersey, a 17 year-old girl had an arranged marriage with an accountant whom she had never met before the wedding. There was no factual dispute that he repeatedly raped and beat her. His defense was that he was simply acting out his rights as an Islamic husband……“the judge determined to except defendant from... Continue Reading

Part of the problem, as we’ve mentioned before, is that many Christians do not distinguish between the church as organization and the church as organism (to use Bavinck’s terminology). We tend to think that “church” is basically plural for Christians. But the church as an institution with ordained officers and a ministry of word and... Continue Reading

What’s easy to see in all of this is the struggle & challenge in a world permeated by sin & evil – whether it’s political or economic, greed & power driven, or entitlement & security driven. As the discussion went on our new Italian friend asked “Where is the ultimate justice in all this? When... Continue Reading