Make no mistake, weak women are still being targeted. Much of the material that is marketed to woman in the so-called Christian market is banking on our immaturity. Maybe you think no one is susceptible in your church because of its good teaching. But if Timothy needed to be warned, so does every other pastor.... Continue Reading

What does that mean? As the catechism says, a person who being made alive is increasingly taking delight in living according to God’s moral will revealed in his holy law (more about that last aspect in future posts). Before the Spirit gave us new life we did not have such an orientation or disposition. So,... Continue Reading

All modern versions of the New Testament, except for the New King James Version, are based (with some variation) on the NAET. In the judgment of the editors of the NAET, the verses in the list above were later additions to the text of the New Testament. In other words, the modern versions are not... Continue Reading

Paul appears to have no compunction laying both tracks of truth side-by-side to leave them suspended in paradoxical tension. You, the Christian, need to apply effort seriously to the progressive part of your salvation (sanctification) while concurrently acknowledging that it is God who applies effort on your behalf to achieve the result.   Sgt Charles... Continue Reading

By understanding what Puritanism did right, Americans can see more clearly what they lack. Puritanism set up a creative tension between personal autonomy and communal obligation, impassioned conscience and sober humility, and vigorous enterprise and collective obligation, each side of these apparent antimonies spurring the other.   Americans can learn a lot about themselves and... Continue Reading

Some are now comparing the Supreme Court’s decision on gay marriage with the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision on abortion. There is an important lesson for us to learn from the pro-life movement. Today, there are more pro-life millennials than others from previous generations who champion pro-life. When pro-life people, made up of more than just evangelical Christians, began fighting... Continue Reading

But the gospel cuts against the grain with a message that counters it all: You are disobedient, you are dead, you are doomed. (And, of course, until Christ found me I, too, was disobedient and dead and doomed.) This bad news of the gospel is so offensive (yet so demonstrably true!) that few people stick... Continue Reading

Achish describes David as bringing him a message from God.  Whether successful or not, … here we have a brief foreshadow of the gospel going to all nations.  After all, it is in the Old Testament in which we read that “everyone who calls on the name of the LORD will be saved” (Joel 2:32). ... Continue Reading

Let us see good worship as a mutual love-fest. And let us see the Regulative Principle of Worship, not as something harsh and restrictive, but as something positive and enjoyable. God wants to enjoy us. God wants us to enjoy him. This mutual pleasuring of one another is what we are created to do; it is why... Continue Reading

I was greeted this morning by this little gem from a PCA church in Portland which illustrates the confusion to which I am referring. Notice how the writer simply accepts the world’s categories of human identity which are a simulatneous rejection of the Biblical categories. He then sweeps such issues as the nature of marriage,... Continue Reading