The core of purity culture is teaching young people to take God’s commands for personal purity seriously—no lust and no premarital sex. Christians who follow God’s Word will continue to preach and teach this.   I grew up during purity culture. I didn’t know it at the time, because purity culture was all I knew... Continue Reading

A funeral centred on the hope we have in Christ makes all the difference in the world. I do not know how unbelievers cope because, without Jesus, death is utterly hopeless.   I shared the eulogy from my mum’s funeral yesterday. As these things are still in the mind, I thought I would write up... Continue Reading

As a wise pastor once observed, our children will remember all sorts of things about us, but the way in which we die is what they will most remember about our faith.   In a recent episode of “60 Minutes,” interviewer Scott Pelley said to his guest, “You don’t have much time. Why are you... Continue Reading

“I’ve been in work and life situations that seemed hopeless.Sometimes I received counsel to give up, but God gave me grace to persevere, and many times I was a better person for it, and good came from it.”   Are you familiar with The Stockdale Paradox? It was popularized by Jim Collins in his excellent... Continue Reading

Second, on the positive side, is Sasse’s exhortation regarding “the glory of not needing to strive from Saturday night to Sunday night . . . we get to rest.” To which he adds, “. . . it’s glorious to get to reflect on the things of the Lord.” Physical rest facilitates spiritual rest, of which... Continue Reading

Knowledge can be dangerous when in the hands of the foolish, the immoral, or the wicked. Wisdom is not just the ability to “see around the corners of life.” Rather, it is the ability to live in light of what is true and good. It is about knowing the realities of the world, seen and... Continue Reading

Christ is King. King in the sense of being Lord of all. But not “king” in any type of political sense. His words to Pilate before His sentencing made that patently clear. And certainly not in a purposefully dividing sense outside of theological orthodoxy. The King who is Christ wants nothing more than for everyone... Continue Reading

We haven’t catechized our own people, let alone our culture, into recognizing the truth that a human embryo is a human being. Until we do, a pill like mifepristone that ends a life at seven weeks won’t feel like a technology being used to kill humans.   Most pro-lifers are familiar with significant abortion-related legal... Continue Reading

“In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, religious thought and institutions in America were dominated by an austere, learned, and intellectual form of discourse that is largely absent from religious life today.”   If you are familiar with the work of Neil Postman, you will know that he was a keen advocate of the written word,... Continue Reading

If God is rational and created an orderly universe and human beings in His image, we can study the universe. Without these assumptions, there is no reason to assume the world is knowable or that humans are able to know. By rejecting God, scientists undercut the foundations for their work.   In 1869, at a... Continue Reading