Central Georgia Presbytery approved an overture at its January 11, 2020 Stated Meeting, placing before the 48th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America a “BCO 34-1 request for General Assembly to Assume Original Jurisdiction in Missouri Presbytery Issue.” An overture is a means by which a Presbytery can bring a matter to the... Continue Reading

Ordinary human callings do not occur in the same dramatic fashion as that of the prophets and heroes of the Bible, yet there is an important similarity between their callings and that of every other human being. We are all called by God to live our lives as those made in the image of God (Gen.... Continue Reading

“We want students to see themselves in the stories that are told,” said Ashley Chiappano, safe schools and community education manager for Garden State Equality, the advocacy group leading the pilot program. “We want to make sure they are getting accurate, appropriate and historically relevant information about the community and the strides that have been... Continue Reading

When I hear people claim the universal fatherhood of God, I immediately want to respond by saying, “Well, yes and no.” Everyone is indeed a child of God in the sense that we are all creatures made in the image of God — we are “God’s offspring,” as Paul declared on Mars Hill (Acts 17:29).... Continue Reading

To reach the racer-goal, and receive the 1st-prize call, needed total mental focus, eyes fixed on the finish, motivated by smell of success, to make sinew-strain worthwhile. When we translate this metaphor into the spiritual arena, it is helpful to think of the following when applying it to ourselves.   I thought it might be... Continue Reading

It is the distinction between faith and works, and their relation to a sinner’s justification, which of course cornerstones Protestantism, by which we would mean biblical Christianity. And so the letter of James can feel a bit squirrel to us. Few preach it. Even fewer perhaps preach it well. Protestants wrestle with those stunningly direct... Continue Reading

In many ways, you can think of biblical counseling as a four-legged stool. One leg is theology—the dynamics of biblical change. Another leg is methodology—methods consistent with biblical theology that promote change. The third leg is the context of biblical counseling—the body of Christ in the local church. The fourth leg is the practitioner participating... Continue Reading

Since few ministers are Bible scholars, they do not know their Bibles, therefore, they use them as if they are nothing more than the user’s manual that came with the monitor on their computer. They never dig into it so the Holy Spirit can break through their calloused hearts with the pure truth from God.... Continue Reading

Peter tells us that we are to make every effort to supplement our faith. How do we do that and what is it we are to add to it? Again, the answer is to become Spirit-led. This breaks the chains of our fleshly desires and puts us into a mode of obedience to God that... Continue Reading

Every seeming hindrance stacked against God in this world—our sin and weakness, the world’s brokenness, every evil power—cannot ultimately stop the steamroller of God’s love from advancing in our lives and to the nations. Consider his promise through Malachi: “For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name will be great among... Continue Reading

May 2020  be year be a year of “Amens” for all of us. May we quickly learn not to complain and murmur and let unbelief take root in our hearts, but with the help of the Spirit, may we learn to submit ourselves to the Word of God and the work of the Spirit in... Continue Reading

God assured Paul of his power and presence, but also gave him a thorn in his flesh to keep him humble, to keep him from falling into a spiritual death-spiral. God calls us to confess our sins that we may be healed, an acknowledgement that sometimes our sickness and suffering may be a divinely-ordained consequence... Continue Reading

We have a duty, as the people of God, to stir one another up in love and good works, exhorting one another to that end, and the context in which we do that is our assembling together. The primary assembling for this purpose is undoubtedly public worship, but it’s not limited, or exclusive to public... Continue Reading

Let’s be clear: the law must be applied, and it applies to every situation in which a person could possibly find himself. But what IS the law fundamentally? The law is fundamentally an expression of God’s own character. And God is love (among the other attributes). Hence the law is love, and reflects that attribute... Continue Reading

One of the most pressing needs for a minister of the gospel is that he would be given the necessary wisdom to counsel, to know when to confront, to mediate, and to discern the particular pastoral needs of a congregation. This is an all-encompassing and recurring need. The minister is daily faced with particular challenges... Continue Reading

The problem spiritually never begins with the signal. Essentially, our ultimate signal is the power and work of the Holy Spirit. When I seemed lost and out of touch spiritually, the problem starts with me. I put myself in a situation where there is minimal hope of receiving the signal well.   Nighttime driving. Country... Continue Reading

Doubt is not the same thing as unbelief. Unbelief is an act of the will that refuses to trust and obey Christ. Doubt is often asking questions or voicing uncertainty; and, it may well be from the standpoint of faith. And doubt which is smothered or ignored can often be the precursor of many problems... Continue Reading

Whatever way you choose to engage the Lord personally, don’t let your devotions be the sum of it. Perhaps they are the main meal of the day, but they are not intended to be the only time you talk to God, as if you have “God time” and then the rest of your time. Instead,... Continue Reading

You may have heard this testimony before: a Christian grows up hearing isolated Bible stories. Later in life, she discovers these various accounts all fit together to proclaim one glorious gospel. She’s delighted to see God’s unfolding revelation in Scripture but wonders why she never saw this before. Parents hoping to make this testimony rare... Continue Reading

Your friends won’t sit by and watch you engage in sinful behavior. Much less will they share in your indulgences. The person who does that isn’t your friend, but an enemy of your soul. Perhaps it’s the fear of not wanting to be the person who rains on someone else’s parade, or maybe it’s a... Continue Reading

You may not feel sufficient for what God has called you to do. Likely, as you look back over the last year, you feel freshly insufficient for your marriage, family, ministry, and other callings. That’s good. God does not call us to feel or be sufficient. We should feel insufficient for the Christian life (2... Continue Reading

The word for the next twenty years must be  “Immediacy”. Plaster it on our bridges, on our walls, on our porn sites, on our webpages, on our houses of parliament, on our legal firms, on our relationships.  Dare I say it, plaster it on our churches and our theology. After all we’ve just watched in... Continue Reading

Brothers and sisters, the world and its lusts are passing away. The reprobate is being given over to their degrading passions and depraved minds. They are condemned already, without help in the world because of their unbelief. Jesus encouraged us to remember that we are to fear not the one who can destroy the body,... Continue Reading

Many people who have grown up in legalistic homes or environments don’t know what to make of the Christian life. There is little room for virtue or moral examples, habits or disciplines. When Christians who have grown up in this environment come to a fresh understanding of the gospel of free grace, they don’t know what... Continue Reading

If Jesus wasn’t truly forsaken—if he didn’t really endure the equivalent of eternal punishment on the cross—then substitutionary atonement is a legal fiction. If Jesus didn’t really suffer the pains of hell on the cross, then the infinite and eternal wrath of God is not truly propitiated. If Jesus didn’t become the object of the... Continue Reading

Matthew’s genealogy has a past, a present, and future. In Jesus Christ we’re now brought into this family; Abraham and David become our fathers. It becomes our genealogy, our family tree. Though this world seeks historical rooting and future life in various ways, only one child establishes the new creation.   The Bible contains 66... Continue Reading

Laughing at the Days to Come is a book about embracing and enduring life’s trials with divine joy. It is about gaining the kind of vision of that Proverbs 31 woman who can look into an unknown future and a long path of suffering and still rejoice. I think it’s fair to say that it’s... Continue Reading

When we realize that human marriage—at its most faithful, loving, and intense—is designed to point us to Christ’s love for us, our paradigms shift. The different callings of husbands and wives are not grounded in gendered psychology but in Christ-centered theology. The requirement that marriage be male-female is not a random prescription from a bygone... Continue Reading

Despite being Christians, some see themselves as poor Humpty, laying on the ground with the king’s horses and the king’s men passing by, unable to put Humpty back together. For some, these fractured pieces might be their past—ways in which they sinned or were sinned against. They think that those pieces remain forever broken at... Continue Reading

God has not placed a special physical birthmark on the elect. The elect do not have the word elect divinely tattooed behind their right ears or anywhere else. The elect are not members of a particular identifiable race or ethnic group. The elect are from every tribe and tongue and nation. But how do I... Continue Reading