Relevant, Old Paths
Biblical values are relevant in every generation.
Much of society is being overtaken by a youth-driven culture because we have neglected God’s call to train up the next generation of young people in the way they should go. If we are to redirect the current paths of young people, we must begin in the church by taking up the charge to come... Continue Reading
Know Thyself
Knowing your heart is harder than you think it is.
With our souls fogged by sin we are natural hypocrites; knowing ourselves is like trying to drive in a steamed-up car. Knowing the world is about as difficult. We see what we expect to see. Matthew Lee Anderson puts it like this: “We will not see if we do not want to see—and we will only see... Continue Reading
When the Desire to be Accepted Sets In
God should be the only Audience that we should please.
In Christ, there is nothing that we could ever do for our Father to disown us. The acceptance that we receive from the Creator and Sustainer of the universe should overshadow the acceptance that we try to achieve from other people whose opinion does not truly matter. At the end of the day, only God... Continue Reading
What Is Orthodoxy and Why Does it Matter for Christian Discipleship?
To be orthodox is to live into the truth of God’s full revelation in Jesus Christ.
The Bible, read with the creeds as a guidepost, focus us on the revelation of God made known in Jesus. Together, they keep us from falling into heresy (i.e. idolatry), so that our focus can be right, our praise directed to the God who called the people of Israel to be his own, and was... Continue Reading
What Does It Mean to Walk in the Spirit?
The giving of the Spirit comes at God’s initiative, but we must seek to be increasingly filled with the Spirit.
The Spirit is involved in everything needed for creation, salvation, growth, and the renewal of all things. But in all these activities, one thing is at the center of his essence and activity. The Spirit is God’s empowering presence. He isn’t merely omnipresent in a general sense; he’s present with us. The Spirit’s presence means... Continue Reading
Biblical Fathering: On Being Flexible
A biblical dad needs to be flexible by being willing to show how he feels and also willing to admit mistakes when he is wrong.
Fathers and mothers both need to have the flexibility that allows them to come to an agreement on rules and limits and clearly define them for the children. Doing so prevents the possibility of the kids playing one parent against the other. Our efforts to teach our children to obey both parents make it easier for... Continue Reading
A Christian Alternative to Optimism and Pessimism
Hope is a Christian Alternative
Both optimism and pessimism describe ways of looking at the future, and both are unhealthy in some respects. I’ll offer the lens of Biblical hope as a robust alternative. Hope is the eager expectation that God will keep his promises. This means that if we are to be hope-filled people, we need to know what God has... Continue Reading
The Lord’s Prayer and Our Weakness
How Christ has Given Us the Words to Say When We Don't Know What to Say
Even those who are black belts find it worthwhile to do the most white belt katas despite knowing the most rigorous moves and expert-level defenses. For the Christian the Lord’s Prayer finds a similar role. Whenever we get confused about how we can go about asking God for help the Lord’s Prayer is the perfect... Continue Reading
What are the “All Things” I can do in Christ?
“I can obey God’s revealed will, through him who strengthens me."
When the Christian life gets hard, we find God asking us to do things that we think are too hard. “I can’t”, we tell ourselves. “I can’t forgive that person”. “I can’t give God my money this week”. “I can’t submit to my husband’s petty requests”. “I can’t keep the Sabbath today”. “I can’t parent my disobedient child at the moment”. “I can’t deal with this difficult situation... Continue Reading
The Faithful Church’s Ever-Open Door
He has set open before them the doors to the heavenly temple.
This open door leads us into the heavenly temple, before the throne of God above, and, as Jesus works both in and through our worship, this is what gives our worship its meaning, its worth and its power. The Philadelphian church was not to consider itself worse off that the earthly temple had closed its... Continue Reading
The Moving Extravagance of Authentic Worship
Mary's Love
There are some, for sure, who make great displays of worship for their own recognition. But not the Marys among us. She was thinking of nothing but Jesus, and she cared not what others thought. Jesus knew, and as He did with the little children who had come to Him earlier, He didn’t rebuke true... Continue Reading
As for Those Rich in Books in this Present Age
Want to know of a good opportunity to be generous with that particular kind of wealth?
I read of the opportunity to send 30,000 good books for a groundbreaking African theological library. Central Africa Baptist University has been gifted a shipping container that can hold 30,000 books. These books will help establish the Paul Kasonga Theological Library, a vital resource for a continent awash in the prosperity gospel. We can send our gently-used... Continue Reading
Previously On…
A Devotional from Deuteronomy 1-3
Are you quick to forget like Israel? These stories are included to remind us that we are weak like they were. We are forgetful. We are disobedient. The next time you walk in a wilderness or are disciplined by the Lord, remember, that he was, is, and always will be your faithful God who remembers... Continue Reading
Christian Parents, Know What You Are Up Against
Pride Month is an aggressive attempt to catechize children into the sexual revolution.
When your 7-year-old asks this month, “Mommy, what does the rainbow mean?,” be ready with something like, “Well, honey, remember the story of Noah? The rainbow is God’s promise to never flood the earth again and a reminder of God’s covenant with His people. But some wicked people who hate God and His word are... Continue Reading
On the Worst Day of Your Life, Jesus has been Praying for You
While we don’t know what the day holds, Jesus does.
We, like Peter, are gloriously confident in our own faith and will. We are, in our minds, invincible to the lure of sin and the brokenness of the world. But we, like Peter, can take heart in the fact that while we don’t know what the day holds, Jesus does. And, amazingly, He’s been up... Continue Reading
Praying to the Father with Childlike Faith
Resting in the Heavenly Power of Heard Prayer.
We are not to think of God as this big grandpa-like figure handing out Werther’s Originals to his grandchildren; just kind of a benevolent super-star up above doting on his little ones. While we confess and gladly believe that the Lord loves us with all His might and grace, we also recognize in humble reliance... Continue Reading
Intinction
Dipping the Bread into the Wine: A Few Considerations
You can neither “crush” nor can you “drink” soggy bread. All the rich symbolism intended by Jesus as he deliberately separates the two symbolic elements from one another are lost. By the action of dipping the bread in the wine you have numbed the intended impact of both elements. Dipping the bread in the wine... Continue Reading
And They Will be Mine
The incomparable hope of belonging to God.
The distinction that exists between the righteous and the wicked is as wide as one side of the cosmos is from the other. The temptation is always to view it the other way, to see these parties like two disgruntled boy scouts bickering over who gets to steer the canoe. But the reality could not... Continue Reading
Decisive Moments: How a Horse Saved Orthodoxy
God worked to preserve the truth of who Christ is.
The sister of Theodosius, Pulcheria, was next in line to the throne. She was a supporter of the orthodox view of Christ’s two natures, and not only her, but also her husband Marcian. Her husband became the new emperor and he fairly quickly convened another ecumenical council to settle the issue of Eutychianism and other... Continue Reading
Deconstructing – But From What?
"Faith deconstruction is a postmodern process of rethinking your faith without regarding Scripture as a standard."
We would like to offer a solution that could bring the deconstructors right back to their senses if they will only accept it. They should put aside their rage, ask God’s forgiveness, and call on the One who purchased and provided redemption for all of us at His own expense. Deconstructionism is really just another... Continue Reading
Lessons from a Job Season
God Remembers
In the midst of a Job season, no matter how difficult, God is there. He is still in control. He is still on His throne as Creator and King of the universe. And if your faith is in Jesus Christ and His salvation, then you are secure in Him now and forever. I lift... Continue Reading
Love Doesn’t Trump God’s Moral Commands
True love is defined for us by God’s commandments.
Love 2.0 now means acceptance and celebration, and if one of God’s moral laws seems to oppose acceptance and celebration, then obviously the second great commandment to love-2.0 your neighbor should trump that law. In other words, now love 2.0 trumps actual love. The sad truth is that anyone who rejects God’s moral commands in order... Continue Reading
Fighting the “Respectable” Sins of Gossip and Slander
Three specific questions we must be prepared to ask when the temptation to gossip or slander arises.
Gossip and slander is a heart issue at the root. This means that if we are tempted ourselves to pass on true or false information about another person, we must be prepared to honestly ask, “Lord, what is going on in my heart right now? Why am I tempted to gossip about and/or slander this... Continue Reading
Christian Ethics and Moral Symmetry
Christian ethical standards are timeless, objective, and are to be applied without fear or favor.
Making human existence reducible to our sexual desires, chromosomes, melanin, or geography without obedience to Scripture and its full-bodied anthropology grounded bearing God’s image is where today’s left wing and right wing horseshoe into similar worldviews. Without Scripture as our authority, humans are prone to valorize whatever gives them the identity they are looking for,... Continue Reading
The Foundation of Christian Unity
Four phrases to describe what it means to live in a way that honors the Lord.
We are to walk “bearing with one another in love” (Eph. 4:2). The believer is to be “patient and kind,” and one who “rejoices with the truth” and “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Cor. 13:4, 6-7). The believer isn’t to “envy or boast,” or be “arrogant or rude,”... Continue Reading
Rediscovering Womanhood
So what is womanhood?
Women are not only given different capacities for grasping and interpreting various aspects of life but are often strongly gifted in other ways as well, men stand to benefit significantly when they are willing to receive counsel from the women in their lives. The tricky part is that it must remain counsel, not command. Few... Continue Reading
Should the Sovereignty of God be Controversial?
We fear we can’t have comfort and solace if God is in control of the bad, but do we think we’d have any hope if He wasn’t?
As C.H. Spurgeon famously wrote, “The sovereignty of God is the pillow upon which the child of God rests his head at night, giving perfect peace.” This “perfect peace” perhaps is akin to the “peace which surpasses all understanding” in Philippians 4:7. This is peace that, despite what is happening around us, we look to God... Continue Reading
Are Israel and the Church Two Distinct Peoples of God?
Covenant Theology on Israel and the Church
We should read the Bible as one story, of one covenant of grace, with one church united in Christ, with Gentile salvation in view from the beginning. Yet we should also believe that God has a future plan for ethnic Jews, not by giving them a separate destiny as a separate people of God but... Continue Reading
The Spirit of Liberty in “Paradise Lost”
Examining the role and beliefs of Satan.
The true aim of the angelic revolution, therefore, is not to achieve equality but to replace one hierarchy with another, and Satan himself admits: “orders and degrees/Jar not with liberty, but well consist” (V.792-793). He is truly the deft Deceiver. First he rouses the pride and private passions of the angels, by declaring them uncreated... Continue Reading
12 Things that Happen on the Cross
Facets of the Atonement
The Christ has conquered death! Hallelujah. Death is dead in the death of the living one. He has wrested the keys of Hades from the Enemy’s cold hand and now rules over death. Satan, Sin & Death ‘died’ on the Cross and Jesus won. Satan was defeated in the way described in Zechariah 3.1-4: the true... Continue Reading