Sinful discontentment is a weight to lay aside. But you can also think of it as a gauge in your heart that tells you when your spiritual eyes have strayed from the real Prize. When it shows up, stop what you’re doing, look at what you’re looking at, and redirect your mind to the real... Continue Reading

In Philippians chapter 3, the Apostle Paul uses the word “whatever” but aims it in exactly the opposite direction of apathy. His heart is lit with a desire, a goal which frames the big picture, a motive which makes every achievement outside its context expendable and every burden within its context bearable. This consuming passion... Continue Reading

The Reformed have not all supported Wilson. In fact, those who confess the Reformed faith, as defined in the Reformed confessions, have been quite critical of his theology. Several Reformed denominations (e.g., the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, The Presbyterian Church in America, The Reformed Church in the United States, and the United Reformed Churches in North America) have... Continue Reading

Mavis Leno (wife of The Tonight Show’s Jay Leno) chairs a committee of the Feminist Majority Foundation (FMF) on Afghan women and girls. In a telephone interview, she told me she is “worried sick” about diplomatic negotiations with the Afghan government and fears the Taliban could again leave women at a disadvantage: “Women are last in... Continue Reading

So why would Baptists like Mohler and Moore today find Calvinism to be a brand of Protestantism worthy of emulation? Why do we hear about Protestants like John Piper, the famous pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, being called a Calvinist or Reformed Baptist? Why not a Lutheran Baptist? Why is the former unexceptional... Continue Reading

Immediately I began to wonder, how can someone read the claims in my book alongside of the claims in Sarah Young’s Jesus Calling and say they are both wonderful? They say two completely different things about how God speaks to us and conveys Christ to us.   I recently heard of yet another field experiment... Continue Reading

There are many groups that claim to be churches that long ago repudiated the evangel, that is, the gospel. Without the gospel, a gathering of people, though they claim otherwise, cannot be an authentic church.   When we consider the predicament that the evangelical church of the twenty-first century faces in America, the first thing we need... Continue Reading

Rejection is a prominent theme throughout the Bible and it is God who is rejected by his people again and again. No one in the entire universe knows rejection quite like God. Many times God compares his people to wayward prostitutes who give themselves to strange lovers (Ezekiel 16:30-34). Despite their unfaithfulness, God promises “your... Continue Reading

While “fasting” from facebook, a cell phone, etc., might be useful to an extent, it’s the voluntary abstention from food (either totally, or in usual quantities) that Scripture presents as the norm. That denial of a visceral need that must be fulfilled for life does something that other abstentions don’t.   “Fasting” isn’t usually a... Continue Reading

As we’ve urged before, it’s always a good idea to pump the brakes on statements from religious conservatives on stepping away from politics, or issues like abortion and homosexuality. Because unless the speaker is specifically announcing a dogmatic shift, those statements are rarely what they seem to be, espeically to liberal ears.   “Today, after more... Continue Reading