What remains to be seen, and what may take quite a long time to see, is whether this event will call Christians to work to find greater agreement on the issue of the miraculous gifts, or whether it will polarize the camps even further.   The first day of the Strange Fire conference has come... Continue Reading

I am a young, Black, Christian male seminary graduate—a dangerous thing to say these days. The evolution of the African American pastor has caused many black churches sit in two different camps—prosperity or social justice. There’s no in-between. The comments I get from others about my seminary education help buttress the point. “So, when are... Continue Reading

“These yuppies want to have good kids,” I told my wife. “But they are terrified of being like people who actually do what it takes to raise good kids.”   Via Andrew Sullivan, here’s a blog post by a woman named Lana Hope, who was raised in a homeschooling Christian fundamentalist family, and who has left all... Continue Reading

Think about it. This list equates churchgoers with spectators at a sporting event. … But is this a good analogy? Perhaps part of the problem is that we all, Christians and non-Christians, laity, clergy, and leadership tend to view church in this spectator mode.   The following was making its way around Facebook recently. It is not... Continue Reading

These voices—and countless others down through the centuries—clearly differ on who Jesus was and what he came to do. But they are united in this unfortunate tendency to misdirect our attention from Christ’s central claim about himself and what he calls us to do in response.   In Western culture, Jesus of Nazareth remains the... Continue Reading

Christians who do care about the persecution of their brothers and sisters around the world need to be fearless about speaking the truth, and willing to be called Islamophobes. The media, the governments of nations, and the churches are increasingly self-censoring for fear of this bogus epithet — exactly as the Muslim Brotherhood and its affiliates... Continue Reading

I have no problem acknowledging that sin is always an expression of unbelief. But there are a lot of God’s promises I can disbelieve at any moment. Justification by grace alone through faith alone is not the only indicative I can doubt. I can disbelieve God’s promise to judge the wicked or his promise to... Continue Reading

So as lay people (that phrase always sounds weird to me), we first need to know Scripture well. We at least need to have the ability to discern for ourselves whether or not the teaching coming from the pulpit is true. There are many false teachers out there! This takes spending regular time in God’s... Continue Reading

What your wife is trying to respect as your “leadership” actually looks more like misleadership. Are you thinking primarily about your wife, serving her, laying down your life for her as Christ did for the Church, and seeing children as God’s reward to the godly (Ps. 127:3)? Or is this decision coming from selfishness or... Continue Reading

While we certainly can agree that different gospels have different emphases, and that they articulate Christological truths in their own ways, is it really the case that gospels like Mark view Jesus as merely human?  Not at all. In fact, it is worth noting that Mark presents Jesus as God from the very opening few... Continue Reading