“That’s why you need to know and be prepared to communicate several things before talking about predestination. Imagine that this doctrine is as a beautiful painting. But before you can even begin to apply the paint, you need to have a canvas. Predestination is the paint. We don’t begin with the paint. We begin with... Continue Reading

First, we need courage.  We need courage to say that unchecked, unrepentant sexual immorality–like unchecked, unrepentant theft, greed, drunkenness, anger, and bitterness–cannot be tolerated in the church.  We need courage in our churches, our denominations, our schools, and our parachurch organizations to affirm clearly—not just on paper, but in our preaching and actions—that blatant sin,... Continue Reading

I would argue that if we truly believe in total depravity, then we must accept mental illness as a biblical category. If I believe that sin has affected every part of my body, including my brain, then it shouldn’t surprise me when my brain doesn’t work correctly. I’m not surprised when I get a cold; why should... Continue Reading

In the realm of the Christian Patriarchy Movement, if a wife disagrees with her husband, or communicates too forcefully, she’s fundamentally dishonoring him. Is it any wonder that marriages, finances, careers, children, and churches crash and burn? No one can tell the Pilot when danger is approaching. And if the plane crashes…oh well, it must... Continue Reading

Recently I had the opportunity to see three churches encourage their congregations to increase their volunteer efforts.  The differences were striking. The three approaches illustrate that this debate over “saving individual souls or redeeming the cosmos” produces very different understandings of the role of church leadership and volunteers.   In God’s worldview, which is more... Continue Reading

If our ministries offer people nothing that cannot already be found elsewhere in the surrounding culture, they offer little motivation for people to drag themselves out of bed on Sunday morning. But most importantly, the false Gospel of Cultural Pandering is ultimately profoundly unloving to both God and the people to whom the Christian church... Continue Reading

And when it comes to the debate over continuity between this world and the world to come, how does a neo-Calvinist read Jesus’ words and continue to think that the life to come will be a lot like life in this world? If that were so, if the new heavens and earth will be similar... Continue Reading

Pointing out that God doesn’t NEED our careers to accomplish his ends is a worthless point; He doesn’t NEED heart surgery to heal a sick patient either but we don’t spend time bemoaning the evils of modern medicine. God has certainly planned to use our careers and good endeavors for His purposes, and to pietistically... Continue Reading

I don’t want those voices to drown out the diverse and compelling voices that now have a better chance of making it in front of us than ever before—even as we still have a ways to go. And what I think we have to do, then, to protect this new wonderful thing of ‘a good... Continue Reading

Religious liberty has rightly been called the first liberty. All other freedoms—political, economic, social, and cultural—are closely intertwined with religious liberty. Since the ratification of the First Amendment in 1791, America has led the world in providing religious freedom by separating church and state and guaranteeing citizens the right to worship as they desire. Our... Continue Reading