Christ and the Third Use of the Law
Correct and discipline your child, but never fail to remind her of the source of her obedience—of Christ and his gospel.
Apart from Christ, we have no ability to live the Christian life—to love others. We must constantly hear the indicatives—who we are in Christ and what he has done on our behalf. We must hear of the Spirit’s work in our hearts and lay hold of the life-giving words of the gospel in order to... Continue Reading
Three Gauges Every Pastor Should Watch
Burnout can be an overused word, so we should use it carefully and not confuse it with ordinary fatigue.
Many pastors can carry seasons of intense labor without burning out, as long as there’s meaning, support, recovery, and a shared load. Burnout tends to take root when the work becomes unrelenting, when our hearts begin to grow cold, and when we start to believe that our work doesn’t make a difference. So pay attention.... Continue Reading
Why Jesus’ Incarnation Stands Alone Among All Faiths
The incarnation accomplishes one saving purpose: God restores sinners to himself, brings them into his holy family, and is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters.
Salvation is not merely forgiveness. The child born to Mary is also Immanuel (Matt 1:23). Sin separated humanity from God’s presence; to restore God’s presence, sin first had to be dealt with. The incarnation begins the saving work that removes the barrier between God and humanity. John says the Word became flesh and “made his... Continue Reading
Shutting Down Christian Speech
A counseling bill in the United Kingdom shows that British Christians cannot escape the culture war.
Principled Christians here in the United States are better protected for now, as we saw in the hopeful precedent set by SCOTUS’s ruling in favor of therapist Kaley Chiles. In Colorado, an attempted ban on so-called “conversion practices” was struck down as an infringement on Chiles’ freedom of speech. Like Pilkington, Chiles used talk therapy... Continue Reading
The Jews, the Church, and Two Ditches to Avoid
What do Gentile Christians actually owe the Jewish people?
Romans 11 is not about foreign policy, it simply exhorts Gentile Christians to not be arrogant towards the Jews. It says maintain humility about your position as a wild olive shoot grafted into a tree you did not plant. None of that translates into a requirement to support any particular nation’s foreign policy. The only... Continue Reading
Giving Gifts to Men: Christ’s Provision for His Church
Gifts should be more about the well-being of the whole church than the preoccupations of its individual members.
Like many lights illuminating a large room, the triune God shines more brilliantly through Christians gathered together than apart. Gifted grace fosters “humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love” and being “eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (4:2). Graces are others-centered, which means that... Continue Reading
Carl Trueman’s Royal Elegy: A Confessional Reformed Critique
Over-reliance upon description over prescription reduces scholarship to a mere diagnosis of the disease rather than a theological cure for a godless society.
Even within a deeply pluralized, multi-faith setting, historic Reformed theology does not default to the compromise King Charles has chosen. The civil ruler still bears an office of divinely ordained authority and is morally restricted from using that authority to equate the Christian faith with false religions or to relativize absolute truth claims. The transition... Continue Reading
Peter’s Deliverance and Herod’s Judgment Echo the First Passover
Not only was Herod not a god, but he was also not even the sovereign ruler of his own kingdom. God in his sovereignty rules all things, including persecution and deliverance from persecution.
On the appointed day, Herod appeared before the people of Tyre and Sidon in all his royal splendor and delivered an eloquent speech (Acts 12:21). The Jewish historian Josephus noted that he wore a robe of silver, designed to sparkle in the sun.2 Impressed by this display, the people of Tyre and Sidon credited him... Continue Reading
Legacy Tree
Tucked away in a draw on our Montana property stands a Douglas fir that a forester estimated to be more than six hundred years old.
Jesus told us to consider the lilies of the field and the birds of the air. He pointed to ordinary things that people passed every day and used them to reveal extraordinary truths about His Father’s care. Standing beneath this old fir, I’ve begun to wonder whether that invitation extends farther than flowers and sparrows.... Continue Reading
Lessons About Marriage from the Dance Floor
During my sabbatical my wife and I took ballroom dance lessons. I never expected they would become one of the clearest illustrations of God's beautiful design for marriage.
No one watching an accomplished couple would conclude that the dancers are interchangeable. Their movements are different precisely because they are dancing together. Their differences do not diminish the dance; they create it. Scripture presents marriage in much the same way. Men and women possess equal dignity because both bear God’s image (Genesis 1:27), yet... Continue Reading
What About the Awkward Psalms?
Plead for the revival of the unjust.
We should desire all people to ‘serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling’ lest the Son’s wrath be kindled against them (Psa. 2:11, 12). Therefore, it is right to apply such prayers to the enemies of the church today. Jesus promises that the gates of hell shall not prevail against her (Matt. 16:18).... Continue Reading
Many Members, One Body: Gifts and Love in the Church
Whatever the gift might be—teaching, administration, and so on—all must be exercised to grow the body in mutual love.
The diversity of body parts is not detrimental to the body as a whole—it’s essential to it. What makes a body a body is the unity of the diversity. The same is true in the church: What makes it the church is the part you play. Your feeling like you have a part to play... Continue Reading
2. Why Reformed Pastors May Be More Subject to Depression than Others
Our job is to keep fighting while engaged in the long retreat of life.
We are all in a form of retreat while we are in these earthly frames. Our bodies and minds, and sometimes our resolve, weakens. In Scripture, we see godly men like Moses or David or Peter fall into sin late in life. We should not think that our doctrine of progressive sanctification makes us immune... Continue Reading
Reputation vs Reality: The Church in Sardis
Façades won’t furnish faith.
So many saints in name only hear the Word of Christ through the Spirit of Christ Sunday after Sunday. The way forward is back: Return to those very words, and believe! There’s power in the words. There’s life, real life, not reputation-only life, in those words. By the grace of the Spirit, we have these... Continue Reading
Book Review: A Sight Never to be Forgotten: Eyewitness Accounts from Union Chaplains at Gettysburg
Hale’s book offers an impressive array of primary resources. No student of the battle or chaplains today can reasonably do without it.
Hale makes a valid case that “chaplains perceived and interpreted” the battle of Gettysburg differently from other participants. Unlike the combatants, “whose focus was limited to killing the enemy directly in their front,” chaplains sometimes stood just behind the battle lines of their regiments, granting them “a wide-angle view.” Others stationed further to the rear... Continue Reading
Something Rotten in the Church?
Reflections on a revealing response.
In my church there are people who think that there should be women elders. There are also people who are not Presbyterian and haven’t a clue what an elder is. I am happy to care for and pastor those who disagree with my view on this – it is not a first order issue. As... Continue Reading
God Believes In Rest. Do You?
Rest to establish in your own mind and others’, that you are not infinite, but finite, and that God made you for rest in just the same way he made you for work.
Do we really need to fill our rest full of “holy” activities for it to be meaningful to the Lord? Is a good holiday the one that leaves us practically burnt out after serving the Lord so hard? Is a good Sunday necessarily the most active Sunday? I see no evidence for this in the... Continue Reading
Why Creation Matters, Part 6: Isaiah
If your God has made heaven and earth—and your own Scripture starts with that foundational fact—then why are you afraid of Babylon, your oppressor?
The God who created the cosmos will certainly rule it wisely and well and will accomplish his own purposes throughout its existence. Isaiah 44.23-45.18 This passage, which lies between the first two Servant Songs, focuses on God’s deliverance of Judah from captivity in Babylon and their consequent return to the land. The God who created... Continue Reading
What Does It Mean to “Put Off the Old Self” and “Put On the New Self”?
Ephesians 4:20-24.
Our justification does not come some day in the undetermined future, based on our own works. Every true believer is declared righteous in Christ and has both legal and relational standing as God’s children. All believers are coheirs with Christ (Rom. 8:17). Christians not only have the benefit of being justified in Christ, but they... Continue Reading
Succeeding at Things that Don’t Matter
Think about what is occupying your time and energy. Are there things that you might be a success in that don’t matter?
We have to be careful that what doesn’t matter to us might not be the same for someone else. The best path to follow is to focus on ourselves instead of being preoccupied with how someone else is spending their time and energy. “I’m not afraid of failure, I’m afraid of succeeding at... Continue Reading
The DNA of a Faithful Church
The early church wasn’t defined by buildings, but by transformed people united in Christ, devoted to truth, and marked by love. What would it look like for our churches to recover that vision?
Wherever such people gather in Christ’s name, there is the church. It might be a grand cathedral, a converted warehouse, a school hall, or a living room. The location is incidental. The essence lies in the people themselves: those called out of darkness into God’s marvelous light. If you ask a group of... Continue Reading
Loving the Church in Her Brokenness
To see and experience the brokenness of the church is also to see and experience the redeeming work of Christ as He makes all things new.
The entirety of Scripture tells the story of God redeeming His people. From Adam and Eve in Genesis 3 to the covenant promises given to Abraham, to Moses leading the people in the wilderness, to Joshua leading them into the promised land, to a nation under the Davidic kingship, and finally to the New Testament... Continue Reading
The Sins of the Father
Isaac’s inheritance of blessing and failure (Gen. 26:1–35).
How does God respond to Isaac’s cowardly, faithless lie? Breathtakingly, God responds with overwhelming, unmerited grace. In a year of severe famine, Isaac plants crops and reaps “a hundredfold.” A hundredfold return is a miraculous, staggering yield. God blesses Isaac so immensely that he becomes a massive economic threat to the Philistines, sparking deep envy.... Continue Reading
The Church as the Pillar of the Truth
"Adorn the doctrine of God our Savior”.
As to how holy lives and pure doctrine enable the church to be a pillar and buttress of the truth, consider that there simply is no true church without the faithful preaching of God’s Word. As Paul says in another place, “If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received,... Continue Reading
Saint and Sinner
The phrase Martin Luther made famous regarding this reality of the Christian experience is that we are simul iustus et peccator. That is, we are simultaneously saints and sinners.
Listen to what he says in his lecture on Paul’s statement in Romans. He says, “The saints in being righteous are at the same time sinners; they are righteous because they believe in Christ whose righteousness covers them and is imputed to them, but they are sinners because they do not fulfill the Law and... Continue Reading
Jesus on Focus
“Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” Matthew 4:4.
Quit being concerned about what everyone else is doing, and concentrate on what you are supposed to do. This doesn’t mean we can’t talk to a friend when he or she sins. We can, and they can also talk to us when it’s our turn to be corrected (Luke 17:3,4; Matthew 18:15ff). But for our... Continue Reading
When Helping Hurts in Pastoral Counseling
With tips on how to avoid it.
What are the signs that counseling might be hurting more than helping? I suspect this problematic dynamic whenever someone insists on meeting but doesn’t do the homework I assign, whenever someone wants to continue meeting beyond the specified endpoint, or whenever meetings continue with no discernible progress in spiritual fruit. In any of these scenarios,... Continue Reading
PCA Adopts Danvers Statement Endorsing Complementarianism
The Danvers Statement’s three sections outline its rationale, purposes and affirmations. Purposes outlined in the document include setting a biblical view of the relationship between men and women, at home and church, as well as continued study among all to apply Scripture’s teachings on manhood and womanhood.
“The Presbyterian Church in America is a pace-setting denomination within evangelicalism,” said CBMW President and Boyce College Professor Denny Burk. “I am grateful that they declared the Danvers Statement a faithful declaration of biblical conviction. This kind of clarity will serve their churches well. I’m also grateful that the PCA voted decisively to maintain its... Continue Reading
You Never Retire from Your Calling
Is retirement the finish line?
Perhaps Christians should stop thinking about retirement as simply leaving something behind. Instead, retirement should be viewed as the opporunity to be useful in new ways. Imagine entering retirement with decades of experience, financial stability, and newfound flexibility. Now, you don’t treat retirment as a season of vacation, but a time where your usefulness expands! ... Continue Reading
Tend Your Garden
The One we are serving sees all.
In an age where anyone can gain a large following online, we tend to look down on those with few followers. In our mega-church era, we can frown upon small churches in rural areas. Such thinking can lead us to despise the small things, even though the vast majority of us will never make the... Continue Reading