“In Numbers 1 we find the record of the generation who rebelled and refused to believe that God was giving them the land of Canaan and therefore died in the desert. In Numbers 26 we read the census record of the second generation as they prepared to enter into their inheritance and abundant life of... Continue Reading

“The message of the book of Revelation is that no matter how successful the kingdom of sin and of Satan may be, the victory will belong to God’s chosen Messiah. God laughs at every attempt to overthrow His kingdom (Ps. 2:4) because He knows what the outcome of the story is going to be. At... Continue Reading

In one sense, it absolutely matters if Christians are hypocrites. We should be striving to better follow Christ and have our actions reflect Him. That is a given. But in another sense, the issue of hypocrisy often becomes a surrogate for a much different claim—the Christian moral standard is wrong.   The revelations about Josh... Continue Reading

The secret to contentment is not in a change of circumstances but a change of heart. As Christians, we have had a change of heart; and this why and how we can both be commanded to be content and Paul can model contentment. Far from being something from the old-world of Christianity, contentment is to... Continue Reading

Different people respond better to different motivations. Some congregants respond better to warnings, a firm-but-loving exhortation and gentle rebuke; others respond better to promises, encouragement and indirect admonition. All of this is bound up in personality type, spiritual condition and background. A combination of those factors tends to shape the way in which particular congregants... Continue Reading

Both graces are the concern of faith in Jesus Christ, but in different ways. In justification, our faith results in our being forgiven, accepted, and accounted righteous in God’s sight. In sanctification, that same faith actively and eagerly takes up all the commands that Christ has given the believer. We dare not separate or conflate... Continue Reading

In grad school, I encountered other spiritual heartaches. While at Regent University, I had a classmate who described herself as radically pro-life. She also said she drove women to get abortions. When asked about this, she said that God told her to love people, not to judge them.   As a Baptist, I believe that... Continue Reading

Given that the people of God in the Old Testament (OT) had been putting the sign of the covenant (circumcision) on their infant children for nearly 2,000 years when Jesus arrived on the scene, it is logical to infer that NT believers, who were overwhelmingly Jewish, would have assumed that the NT sign of the... Continue Reading

So it seems that since I know that my all-powerful heavenly Father is working through all circumstances to accomplish his good purpose for me and all of his children, that it should be easier for me to rest in this knowledge and accept it. I should not find it so difficult to live in the... Continue Reading

All that is truthful, from whatever source, is unified, and will cohere with whatever else is truthful. (“Because God’s reality is unified and coherent, centered as it is on the person of Christ, all truthful apprehensions of that reality, or truthful expressions of those apprehensions, will cohere and contribute to an integrated, unified, Christ-centered vision... Continue Reading