Warring Against God
King Ahab thought that he could trick God, and thus avoid judgment.
What a great comfort we receive in the knowledge that we belong, in both body and soul, to a sovereign God, who is by his very nature a merciful, gracious, loving God. His promises are for the good of His people. We may suffer in this life, and often we do. God does not promise... Continue Reading
Black and White Churches: Is Reconciliation or Something Else Needed?
We are called to live in the present for the sake of the future.
Efforts to reconcile black and white churches are currently occurring. Is reconciliation needed or is there something else? Calls for reconciliation are based in the notion that one race was harmed by the other race. Is that valid? Yes and no. That is a judgment, however, I believe, to be exaggerated. Why? In American... Continue Reading
How Do I Teach My Family?
Three things to remember as we seek to build God-centered homes where sound doctrine is the foundation and our Lord Jesus Christ is the cornerstone.
It is during common everyday activities that Christian families are encouraged to talk about God and His Word and to consider how doctrine applies to various circumstances that arise. Therefore, let us seize those opportunities to explain and apply the wisdom of God’s Word in our families. Dear believer, just as a plant flourishes in... Continue Reading
The Lord Is My Restorer
As you strive to live for His glory, rest in Him, be restored by His Word, and walk in paths of righteousness.
The Lord desires us to live for His glory, and this is good news for us because we find our ultimate joy in doing so. Your best response to your Shepherd is satisfaction in His provision, gratitude for His restoration, and trust as you walk carefully and diligently in His steps no matter the path... Continue Reading
Spiritual Inventory for Pastoral Visits
For systematic pastoral visitation of church members.
Shepherd the flock! Remember that these difficulties are not interruptions in your pastoral work but are the pastoral work itself. One final concern: Be sure to keep what you hear to yourself alone and any notes or files secure. Do not use the stories you hear as illustrations in your messages or as gossip. ... Continue Reading
Gospel Norm
People need the norm to become the gospel preached daily.
The gospel shouldn’t be a rarity; it should be a normality, and when shared frequently with and to others, good news can become normal—in the best sense. While Christ alone does the work in human hearts, he wants them to hear the message from our mouths. Bravery began for me in the depths of... Continue Reading
Life in the Valley
My sense of well-being came from family, neighbors, and life punctuated with the simple pleasures of human relationships as well as being free to be a child, and to enjoy the wonders of nature.
Like many young people I did not make the most of what was offered, but that was my fault. At that that time, nobody told me I should be ashamed of my whiteness or if I wanted to become a girl I could. We believed good and evil were objective categories. No one suggested that... Continue Reading
America’s Marriage Deserts
We weren’t made to live in a marriage-arid society.
Marriage is good and good for us, the design of a Creator who actually has our best interests at heart. The decline of marriage in modern America is a tragedy because we weren’t made to live in a marriage-arid society, and that means improving what Wilcox calls “the state of our unions.” Thankfully, if these... Continue Reading
What Does God Listen For?
The ears of our Father are attentive to the cries of his children.
Out of all the innumerable sounds in heaven and earth, God pays special attention to the voice of his people. Psalm 34 is not simply a theological statement of this fact—it is the personal testimony of David, when he was a fugitive running for his life. He celebrates his own experience of God hearing his... Continue Reading
Bound Together
Paul promised: “Now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.” (Ephesians 2:13)
God promises: “Even a woman may forget her nursing child, yet I will not forget you. Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.” (Isaiah 49: 15,16) Among those who first heard these words, who could have anticipated the Greatest Cost, Christ’s engraved/cross-scarred hands, seven hundred years later? Friends, pastor/poet Holy... Continue Reading
Lose the Gospel, Return to Childishness
This childishness is the inevitable outcome of the kind of theological liberalism that has dominated so many churches for several generations.
The church must bear witness to a grown-up faith. That means that we need a renewed sense of the holy, the sacred, and the transcendent. And that must start at the top, where it is too often most absent. The X feeds of many of the loudest Christian pastors today indicate little difference from the... Continue Reading
Thoughts about Imminency
The doctrine of imminency states that Jesus is returning soon. Classical dispensationalism and the pre-tribulation rapture doctrine were devised in the early nineteenth century to be consistent with a particular view of imminency.
We should pray for the quick coming of things agreeable to God’s will because we strongly desire them. At the same time, we should patiently submit to the wisdom of God’s timing in answering our prayers. We should sincerely pray for the Lord Jesus to come quickly even if we have reason to believe that... Continue Reading
Two Things Nearly Everyone Believes About the Universe
God’s Crime Scene: A Cold-Case Detective Examines the Evidence for a Divinely Created Universe.
I hope God’s Crime Scene can help you answer this question by employing a number of very simple investigative tools detectives use every day. Criminal investigators recognize one important evidential truth: the identity of a suspect must account for all the evidence “in the room”. Whatever caused the origin of our universe must also account for all the other evidence we... Continue Reading
On Many Paths to God
We must call out biblical error loud and clear.
Pope Francis, once again, has landed himself in hot water by stating that there are many roads to God – not just Christianity. And it was not enough for him to state this once, but he doubled down on it again a few days after his first remarks. He said this a week ago at an... Continue Reading
God Still Visits Egypt
Reformation in the Making
God, being rich in mercy, has begun to visit the church in Egypt over the last two and a half decades. In 2005, the Alexandria School of Theology (AST) was founded under the Anglican church of Egypt, with a missionary from the Presbyterian Church in America as its first principal. This seminary has played a... Continue Reading
How to Identify a False Teacher, Part 2
Three types of fruit we should examine to discern if someone is a false teacher.
The second step to examining if someone is a false teacher is to look at their fruits. We can examine their fruits in three specific areas: their lives, their lips, and their leadership. If we see bad fruit in these areas, that is a sure sign that someone is a bad tree, a false teacher,... Continue Reading
Scruton on the Death of England
On mourning what we have lost.
Roger Scruton often wrote about his beloved England and how he was witnessing its tragic collapse. In 2000 he penned England: An Elegy (Bloomsbury). While focusing on just this one nation, much of what he says there can be applied to other parts of the West. Here I simply want to offer some quotes from the volume.... Continue Reading
The Legacy of John W. Montgomery
Born, Oct. 18, 1931—Died, Sept 25, 2024
“John Warwick Montgomery was an evangelical, evidential, and confessionally Lutheran apologist, a defender of the faith for all people and for all seasons. The raison d’être for the degrees, the books, the debates, and his tireless contribution to the defense of the faith was not his pursuit of an esoteric idea or an intellectual chess... Continue Reading
The Atonement’s Influence on the Western Legal System
What impact did the Cross of Christ play in our understanding of law?
The Church was the first to create universities, and law was the first area of study. As the political and secular realms needed to catch up to these advances in law, they all studied at law schools run by the Church. There are countless other ways Christianity and its doctrines are foundational to the Western legal... Continue Reading
Why Join a Church?
Ten biblical reasons why every professing Christian ought to join a local church.
God’s great love for the church beckons believers to join the church. The Bible repeatedly stresses how vitally important the church is to the living, triune God. The church was on his heart in his work of creation (Eph. 3:9-11). The church was on his heart in his work of salvation (Matt. 16:18; Eph. 5:25). The church was promised his special... Continue Reading
Why Do We Care About History?
Tucker Carlson’s interview with Darryl Cooper shows why the study of the past matters.
We bring courage to historical study because it takes courage to confront the realities of human sin as it manifested itself in the past. And we need the courage to avoid simple explanations about past events and personalities. History also requires that we exercise justice to the dead. We avoid cherry-picking from the past for... Continue Reading
The Sins Against Jesus in Heb 10:29 and Matt 12:32
The sin against Jesus in Hebrews 10 is unforgivable, but the sin against Him in Matthew 12 is forgivable.
The sin in Hebrews 10 is aggravated by the fact that the offense against Christ by the apostate in that text is worse in its character than the offenses of the crowds and the Pharisees against Christ in Matthew 12. In Matthew 12, the crowds were sinning against Him in thought and word, but it... Continue Reading
Pondering the Passage of Time
Do we value our past? Do we see God in it?
The past isn’t a museum, it is happening every moment we live. We are creating our past every moment. How we understand the past is a very present concern. We need to be discerning in understanding the past. And we need to be mindful that our present lives are adding to the past we are... Continue Reading
Memorizing the Bible
How is one to get started memorizing Bible passages?
One can begin with the shortest verse in the Bible, John 11:35, “Jesus wept.” Some might wonder how memorization of such a short passage could be beneficial. Any passage memorized comes from a context and each text stored in the memory can be the key to remembering the content of its chapter. Why did Jesus... Continue Reading
Peace Child
“The Son of God, loved me and ‘gave’ (‘paradidómi’) himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20)
Absolutely astonishing! What shall we, soaked in sin, say to such blood-stained passionate pursuit? If God is for us, who can be against us? Christian and those who will yet trust him, Father God would give up his only Son before he’d give up on you! And, Jesus would betray himself before he would betray you!... Continue Reading
The Fragility of Idols and the Security of the Savior
While the human longing for security and stability is as old as humanity itself, we are living in a cultural moment where safety and security remain in the forefront of our minds and in the foreground of conversations.
Once we are aware of our own fault lines, we seek to reinforce these places with the sturdy, immovable, unchangeable words of Scripture. Grass withers, flowers fade, and false centers shake, but the Word of God stands forever (Isaiah 40:8). We would do well to listen to the advice of writer of Hebrews to those... Continue Reading
Do You Long for Truth and Meaning in Life? Read Hebrews
Hebrews reveals the perfection of Jesus as the one and only Mediator between God and humanity, who secures our communion with God.
Hebrews presents a realistic but hopeful paradigm to make sense of your daily experience: like the Israelite generation who left Egypt with Moses, your life is a trek through a hostile wilderness, en route to a homeland that transcends this sin-stained earth. A Treasury of Truth and Encouragement Hebrews is a rich treasury of... Continue Reading
Growing Numbers of Latinos “Revert” to Islam
The search for God is happening largely as a search for meaning without the pressure of family life or cultural traditions.
Like many Americans, Latinos find themselves seeking stability in an uncertain time. Growing numbers are leaving the Catholicism in which they were raised—and they face unique cultural challenges and have distinct cultural affinities that make Islam attractive. Hispanic women in particular find themselves drawn to Islam. In 2014, the PBS program Religion and Ethics... Continue Reading
Christian Institutions in a New World
Book Review—"Religion & Republic: Christian America from the Founding to the Civil War"
Miles Smith’s book is an excellent reminder that conservatives should never prioritize an idealized individual or nation. Rather, we must work to preserve those institutions that point us to better lives. Liberalism has not been wanting for obituaries in recent years. Academics such as Patrick Deneen have argued at length that the American experiment... Continue Reading
The Old Testament: Spectacular Stories and One Gospel
If we read or teach the Old Testament without landing on Christ, we’ve missed the point.
By powerfully saving Israel from danger and their enemies, God points us his greatest work of salvation (Luke 24:27; see John 1:19-27). Israel was waiting, expecting a Messiah to save them. But what many of them missed was that he came to deliver us from our sins (Matthew 1:21). Many make a similar mistake today. ... Continue Reading