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This Messianic Age

Everywhere we look, people have appointed themselves as the savior of others.

Written by Barry York | Wednesday, April 21, 2021

As false messiahs and idols always do, they falter, fall down, and fail us. What freedom and joy there is knowing the only One anointed by heaven to save!    In their influential book When Helping Hurts on poverty alleviation, Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert speak of the “god complex” or “savior complex” that so many exercise—especially in... Continue Reading

What’s an Exile to Do? Brace Yourself to Face Fiery Trials with Joy

Trials do to our faith what fire does to gold.

Written by R. Fowler White | Wednesday, April 21, 2021

Know that our God has His good purposes in our suffering for His will, and that He sets the limits of how intense our suffering is and how long it lasts. Take the Apostle’s approach: do good and, if suffering comes, trust God to refine you and confirm you through it.    The sobering truth... Continue Reading

The Heart of God’s Law

Tracing the Ten Commandments to Jesus

Written by Chris Bruno | Wednesday, April 21, 2021

When we understand the relationship between the law and the covenant, we can turn afresh to the question of how Christians ought to fulfill these commandments in light of the work of Christ.   For centuries, the Christian church has given careful attention to the Ten Commandments. In his commentaries, John Calvin devotes hundreds of... Continue Reading

Land Acknowledgment Statements: The Cultural Violence of the Academic Elite

The primary purpose of these statements is not to do justice to the victims of historical oppression but rather to signify one’s affinity for the performative rituals of academic wokeness.

Written by Adam Ellwanger | Wednesday, April 21, 2021

The intellectual elite who fetishize the tragic stories of marginalized groups in America are less interested in redressing those sufferings than they are in using them to maintain their membership in an elite group that is far removed from the plight of the “Other” (as they might say).   After a quick search of my... Continue Reading

“Antiracism” Deserves a Capital Letter: A Preview of Voddie Baucham’s Fault Lines

Antiracism has its own cosmology, original sin, law, gospel, martyrs, priests, means of atonement, new birth, liturgy, canon, theologians, and catechism.

Written by Garrett O'Hara | Wednesday, April 21, 2021

Because Antiracism is a definable ideology and new religion, rightly capitalizing it as a proper noun deprives Antiracism of its by-design rhetorical underpinning. In the language of Antiracism, simply being not racist is not enough.   Recently on Twitter, a Ph.D. student at a Southern Baptist seminary threw shade at Voddie Baucham’s upcoming book Fault Lines for... Continue Reading

I Think We are Killing the Wrong People

The Bible does not sanction the killing of babies in the womb. However, the Bible does sanction capital punishment of adults who are guilty of the crime of murder.

Written by Larry Ball | Wednesday, April 21, 2021

The Bible is clear about ways to love our neighbor that are very practical and not just pious words. The question is not whether someone is going to die, but the question is who is going to die.  I am afraid that emotions fueled by modern sentimentality, and prevailing misconceptions of love, rule men more... Continue Reading

The Problem of the Premise

If you begin with a faulty cause premise the argument fails, and good intentions cannot and will not rescue it.

Written by Dr. Bruce A. Little, PhD | Wednesday, April 21, 2021

By framing the cause of racism as “whiteness” it makes it an ethnically ancestral sin that condemns all in that tribe both past, present, and future.  It means guilt without redemption. Unfortunately, if a voice of objection to this faulty reasoning it is raised it is met with the response that the objection only proves... Continue Reading

Why is Inseparable Operations Such a Hard Sell?—The Trinity and Inseparable Operations

The doctrine of inseparable operations affirms that the triune persons act as a single agent externally, while internally their operations are divided.

Written by Adonis Vidu | Wednesday, April 21, 2021

The doctrine of the Trinity ultimately rests on the biblical datum of inseparable operations. But the reverse is also true: triune unity necessarily implies the inseparability of God’s external operations.   For both teachers and pastors, the doctrine of the Trinity has been one of the most demanding topics, often resulting in glazed-over student eyes,... Continue Reading

I Will Not Offer the Lord What Costs Me Nothing

Powerful preaching comes from praying preachers.

Written by H.B. Charles Jr | Tuesday, April 20, 2021

How long does it take to prepare a sermon? As long as it takes. Get in the seat. Gather your tools. Go to work. And don’t quit until the hard work is done. Think about it. You have left the pulpit feeling bad that you did not prepare better. But you never leave the pulpit... Continue Reading

Blemishes Preserved: A Specific Sin God Supposedly Leaves Alone Is Same-Sex Attraction

When one has a sinful condition, as the St. Louis doctrine maintains, there is no actual sinning when one has same-sex attraction, because it is only a potential to sin.

Written by David H. Linden | Tuesday, April 20, 2021

When all one has is a sinful condition, in the St. Louis doctrine there is no actual sinning when one has same-sex attraction, because it is only a potential to sin. So fervent sexual desire sits there passively causing no sin. Some of us have never heard of a passive passion. It would be like... Continue Reading

Herman Bavinck and Theology Proper: Talk of God’s Absoluteness and Why it Matters

For Bavinck, all of theology is the knowledge of God, a science that pursues God through his own revelation of himself to the world.

Written by Cory C. Brock | Tuesday, April 20, 2021

To describe this nature of absoluteness, theologians have often grasped for the term “simple,” which is potentially confusing in the contemporary world but its conceptual content remains unflinchingly necessary. As Bavinck points out with regards to this concept: “We as human beings can make a distinction between the being and attributes of people. A human... Continue Reading

On Being Inclusive (And Other Foolish Nostrums)

Why we must not be inclusive of inclusion:

Written by Bill Muehlenberg | Tuesday, April 20, 2021

The worst sort of “inclusion” that the religious leftists are pushing has to do with salvation. They claim that God loves everyone, accepts everyone, rejects no one, and therefore all people are – or will be – saved. There is no hell, there is no wrath of God, and there is no narrow road to... Continue Reading

A New Kind of Biblical Hero

We weren’t made for leper colonies or fantasy worlds. We were made for reality. Even if at times painful.

Written by Mike Leake | Tuesday, April 20, 2021

“They are always going to reject you….eventually.” This is the message my shame tells me. I’m fighting against that message these days. I’m trying to believe the gospel enough to pursue unguarded relationships with others. I’m trying to trust in Jesus enough to be authentic; authentic with others, myself, and ultimately with Him. The leper... Continue Reading

Loyalty Matters: The Misunderstood Virtue

Blind loyalty is no true loyalty at all. In fact, a friend who offers up blind loyalty is not offering a gift, but a poison pill.

Written by Matthew Hall | Tuesday, April 20, 2021

Any healthy organization rightly expects that its members will be completely loyal to the mission. Far more important than blind devotion to any individual or a tribal fanaticism, mission-driven loyalty actually has the capacity to create cohesive organizational cultures where innovation happens, ideas move toward execution, and people flourish. Ironically, mission-driven loyalty creates space for... Continue Reading

Salvation Belongs to the Lord

No one is immune to brushing past the dust covered diamond of salvation.

Written by Scott Hurst | Tuesday, April 20, 2021

How can we bury something so precious as salvation under the dust of jargon? God teaches Jonah a lesson he will never forget. Salvation, all the glory of being rescued by God—through Jesus’s atoning sacrifice and rescued to God—is a gift he graciously gives. The check is in his name and the rewards come to... Continue Reading

Dear Twitter, I’m Leaving You for My Wife

The worst part of Twitter might actually be the whole pig—the head, the body, the arms, the legs, the snout, the curly tail, and not just the underbelly.

Written by Benjamin Vrbicek | Tuesday, April 20, 2021

I know that I am culpable for my Twitter feed. The specifics of all the social media algorithms may remain opaque, but the principle is readily known: the more you click, the more you get. And I certainly got. For every doofus Twitter comment I clicked, I got ten more comments in my feed. My... Continue Reading

Some Lose God While Serving God, A Subtle Danger in Christian Ministry

One of the most frightening — Lewis calls it “the subtlest of all snares” — is the temptation to mistake a means for the end.

Written by Joe Rigney | Monday, April 19, 2021

Abstract truth tends to remain on the surface. Real transformation comes when we get concrete and personal. And I’m no artist, real or otherwise. But I am a teacher and a preacher. And I love to teach and preach. And reading Lewis on the danger of mistaking the means for the end challenges me precisely at this... Continue Reading

The PCA Has Fallen into Error, and Can’t Get Back Up: Part 2-Racism

In Part 2, we will look at race and racism. Specifically, the work on this of the PCA’s General Assembly in 2004 and 2016.

Written by Bill Peacock | Monday, April 19, 2021

The assumption of the General Assembly appears to be that the current economic and conditions of many blacks today are manifestations of racism by whites, past and present, and only through repentance by whites from this past and current (inherent?) sin can blacks escape the negative effects of these sins and find their way out... Continue Reading

Standing at the Abyss: Reclaiming Civilisation

How are we to respond to the full-blown assault on our culture?

Written by Bill Muehlenberg | Monday, April 19, 2021

Sure, as a Christian I realise that at the end of the day cultures will come and go, nations will rise and fall, and societies will only thrive temporarily. As C. S. Lewis said about the dignity of the individual as made in the image of God: “There are no ‘ordinary’ people. You have never... Continue Reading

Keep Your Head

Don’t be shocked and don’t be thrown, be sober minded, keep your head in the midst of that.

Written by Paul Levy | Monday, April 19, 2021

It isn’t always the case that the fears of a crisis are unfounded. Just occasionally it is as bad as you fear, but still Paul’s advice holds firm: Keep your Head. There are challenging and fearful times in ministry and church life, but rarely is an instant reaction the right reaction. Quick decisions are often bad... Continue Reading

Who Can Stop the Lord Almighty?

Who can stop the bride of the Lord Almighty? She has been given a task.

Written by CoffeeSwirls | Monday, April 19, 2021

Her bridegroom has been given all authority. Not most. All. As we go through the good works set before us (Ephesians 2:10) let’s keep this in mind. We are part of an unstoppable kingdom. To approach the tasks that our Lord has ordained for us as tasks that are doomed to fail is to have... Continue Reading

The Kingdom of God Conquors Racism

We have a hope that transcends social policies. We have the gospel.

Written by Chrys Jones | Monday, April 19, 2021

In these days of division, our earthly kingdom seems to be splintered beyond repair. We should long for unity and reconciliation. We should long for a kingdom with no tears from the pains and consequences of partiality. We should long for the eternal joy and equality we were created for. But most importantly, we should... Continue Reading

The Dangerous Culture of Apology

If we have not done anything objectively wrong and know that to be the case, then offering an apology as if we had done something wrong has several serious problems.

Written by Neil Shenvi | Monday, April 19, 2021

While I agree that we should be constantly open to correction, that we’re often blind to our own failings, and that we should always listen with humility to rebuke, I think that this ‘culture of apology’ is not only wrong but actively dangerous. We are minimizing the importance of honesty. We are building a world... Continue Reading

Obedience to Civil Authorities

Christians are bound to a general disposition of submission toward civil authorities, except for when their policies come into conflict with divine justice and the demands of Christ.

Written by Brant Bosserman | Monday, April 19, 2021

We ought to expect for Christians and Churches to embrace a range of acceptable stances that simultaneously reflect primary honor for God, and secondary honor for the state.  There will be certain government evils that believers simply overlook (Prov. 17:9; 19:11), either because they are preoccupied with other godly causes, unaware of the said evils,... Continue Reading

The Resurrection’s Higher Math

Christ is better than the law and the law cannot account for the eternal kind of life.

Written by Jared C. Wilson  | Sunday, April 18, 2021

But my Jesus will look at my accuser and say, “Isn’t this why you are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God? Because Jared is in me by faith, and because there is no condemnation for those who are in me, he is an heir of eternal life. I am... Continue Reading

What is Reformed Preaching?

Reformed preaching is on watch for the ways the truth of Scripture relates to every sphere and circumstance of life.

Written by Nate Shurden | Sunday, April 18, 2021

In a day when pastors are looking to the world of business, psychology, and politics for talking points, and sermons are sounding more and more like motivational talks, group therapy sessions, or stump speeches, we would do well to return to the legacy of the Reformation—to recover, yet again, the centrality of preaching in our... Continue Reading

The Voice That Raises The Dead

What Jesus did for this young man and widow is a preview of what he will do one day for all of us who have believing loved ones who have died before us: one day Jesus will give us to each other again.

Written by Tim Counts | Sunday, April 18, 2021

The fourth time that Jesus’s voice raises the dead is easy to miss. When Jesus gives up his spirit, right before he dies, he cries out with a loud voice, “It is finished!” (Matthew 27:50, see also John 19:30). We are well acquainted with what happens in the next verse in Matthew: the curtain of... Continue Reading

Evolution: not a Theory

It would be best to refer to evolution as a speculation or unsubstantiated conjecture about the past.

Written by Dr. Lisle | Sunday, April 18, 2021

It is certainly the case that neo-Darwinian evolution has not been proved.  But we probably shouldn’t say that it is “just a theory” because a theory (in the primary, scientific sense of the word) has supporting evidence, whereas neo-Darwinian evolution does not.  When people say, “evolution is just a theory,” they probably mean it is... Continue Reading

Fear Being Liked

Being liked is the currency of our social relationships, seen in everything from the unspoken gravitation toward one person over another at a party to the digitized tokens of attention we exchange on social media.

Written by Jeremy Pierre | Sunday, April 18, 2021

The Lord made us to belong to Him first and to one another second. The fear of being disliked by people can threaten that order. Here’s how: By wanting to be desirable in the eyes of people, we often devalue the superior affection of God toward us. We forget that our main problem has never... Continue Reading

Law and Grace: Co-workers But Not Co-redeemers

We cannot demand people to uphold God’s law without God’s grace,

Written by Nick Potts | Sunday, April 18, 2021

Let us not forget the hope of God’s grace in our own lives, that when we discuss the requirements of the Law, it is by grace that we are not served the penalty of the Law. There is much talk today about “justice,” and many Christians are requiring others to fulfill the demands of the... Continue Reading

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