Do Not Be Anxious
We must take to heart Jesus’ words to trust Him and live our lives here and now with our treasure in Heaven.
In Matthew 7:13-14 Jesus tells us in His Sermon on the Mount that the way to salvation is not easy nor is it easy to find. In fact, the religious way that is made easy leads to destruction. Those who are saved are those who find the narrow gate that is hard to enter because... Continue Reading
Joshua Janavel and the Plight of the Waldensians
These details included reminders to stay repentant and prayerful, to always begin by humbly taking their requests to the governing authorities, and to take arms only when absolutely necessary.
In 1685, with the Edict of Fontainebleau, the French government placed new restrictions on the Huguenots, and the new duke of Savoy, Victor Amadeus II, decided to follow suit. He banned Waldensian pastors, forbade their public worship and forced parents to give their children a Roman Catholic baptism. When the Waldensians rebelled, many were again... Continue Reading
Are You Willing to Surrender?
Surrendering to ministry includes a determination to follow God’s call wherever it may lead.
Surrendering to ministry rightly establishes the pastor’s motivation. After all, the pastor’s incentive should not be material gain, the applause of men, or any other earthly enticement. Rather, the preacher should, like the apostle Paul, know in his heart, “If I preach the gospel, I have nothing to boast of, for I am under compulsion;... Continue Reading
Stress in the Body
Take your eyes off the waves of dissatisfaction, look to Jesus, and go out of your way to love one another.
It is easy for a group of believers to experience stability for so long that their eyes begin to look more to the body’s health and benefits than their Savior. When the manifestation of stress begins to show in the congregation, we begin to realize, even as a church, we all still have a chronic... Continue Reading
Thoughts on Empathy and the Love of God
Empathy points to something that only originates in God: love.
Empathy can be exhausting; caring endlessly about the feelings of others can leave us feeling drained and swallowed up. The only way our culture can counteract these concerns about empathy is to talk about boundaries, and the need to know how to have appropriate ones with others. This value of empathy has no foundation of its... Continue Reading
Psalm 42-43: I have Confidence in…
Are you downcast today? Take heart! Your redeemer lives.
I thought of the song “I Have Confidence,” from The Sound of Music, where Julie Andrews declares: “I have confidence in confidence alone; besides which you see I have confidence in me!” In the comment section of the YouTube video, someone wrote, “I sing this when I’m having a bad day.” But this is not the... Continue Reading
The Captor Listens to the Captive
May we see our desperate estate of sin and misery and listen to the one the world despised, rejected, and killed, even Jesus Christ whom God raised from the dead.
In Jesus’s day Israel sent the lepers away; no one would go near them. They were unclean and could not be helped. The lepers knew their time was short and they would soon perish in misery. So when Jesus came preaching repentance and the kingdom of God with great power and healing, the lepers put... Continue Reading
Christians And Those In Authority
We must carefully seek God’s wisdom in every matter before we open our mouth.
The wise man trusts in the Lord, not in human leaders whose plans are finite and often futile. Even those leaders who trust in God and seek to follow Him are fallible and can lead you astray. Yet God tells us that our human leaders have authority from Him. Godly leaders will probably at least... Continue Reading
The Still More Glorious Day
The cross was not the defeat it had seemed to be. Rather it was a defiant, emphatic, all-powerful victory.
The day Jesus rose, he planted an invincible, unshakable flag of hope over the grave. How could anything ever surpass his victory? Only he could author a more glorious day, and he has, a day that is coming soon. “The trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed”... Continue Reading
How the Pandemic Will Change Evangelism for Good
This COVID-19 period is a golden opportunity, partly because culture has changed. We must all hear and heed afresh the rebuke of Jesus, “Why do you not know how to interpret the present time?” (Luke 12:56).
The silver lining of COVID-19 is it gives church leadership a chance to change its entire thinking on what its members must do to reach this world. Because the world is now even more suspect to the invasion of their space, we will have to learn how to get beside others in a way that... Continue Reading
What Does It Mean to Be a Man in the Home?
In keeping with God’s original design, as restored in the Lord Jesus Christ, a true man, as rooted in his essential, Godgiven identity, will reflect characteristics of his design.
Men may feel under great pressure at times as providers and leaders. Without God, living out all their roles adequately, or even with excellence, is virtually impossible. It’s a high calling to be ultimately held accountable for all that occurs in their family (and in the case of elders, the church). It is at this... Continue Reading
On Having Backbone From Above
The backbone from above lives in the real world and appreciates the natural order.
This heavenly-granted earthly spine is a rare commodity. My guess is we will see two groups on the rise in the near future. We will have the rise of the spineless running parallel with the rise of the backbone from below. Believers in the Courageously Crucified One should want nothing to do with either. So,... Continue Reading
Stumbling Over Stereotypes
Let’s change the stereotypes and become known as a church who loves our neighbor enough to tell them the truth about how to find eternal peace with the One who created them!
I don’t care what color or creed or faith background they come from. I am seeking to share the good news of the gospel with a person made in the image of God so that they might be reconciled to their Creator; and when a person understands that, false stereotypes quickly fall by the wayside. What... Continue Reading
Seeking the Lost
How much more joyous it should be to us when a lost sinner, made in the image of God, returns to his Maker and Redeemer!
Do we have the faith, encouraged by Luke 15, that lost people, pictured as straying sheep, misplaced coins, and wandering sons, will eventually return to their rightful place? Do we anticipate rejoicing wholeheartedly when what is lost is found by Christ? A few weeks ago, we returned home after a wonderful family vacation... Continue Reading
Review: “The Revelation of Jesus Christ-A Commentary for the People”
Crenshaw’s, “The Revelation of Jesus Christ,” provides a considerable amount of insight into the meaning of the visions that John saw and recorded in the Revelation.
Crenshaw places his emphasis throughout the book on the textual context of each of the visions of Revelation. Through each section, Jesus remains in view. A discussion of Jesus’ overwhelming holiness before a prostrate John leads to a church-by church-study series through the seven letters to the churches. A Review: The Revelation of Jesus... Continue Reading
Tending the Vine
The Father will purge those who are not united to Christ by the Holy Spirit and will prune those who are united to Christ in their effectual calling.
Jesus says that every branch aligned with Him that does not bear fruit, His Father the vinedresser will remove. When Jesus says the Father takes away a branch, he is not speaking of someone losing salvation because they were slacking in their efforts at obedience. Rather, fruitlessness betrays lifelessness. The vine and branches is a metaphor... Continue Reading
The Morning Star of the Reformation
Hus, Luther, and the other Reformers were indebted to him. So are we. Wycliffe was indeed “the Morning Star of the Reformation.”
While attending church on December 28, 1384, Wycliffe suffered a severe stroke, his second. He died two days later. Post tenebras lux—”after darkness, light”—is the slogan representing the Reformation at Calvin’s Geneva. The sun did rise in the Reformation of the sixteenth century, and the light of the gospel chased the darkness away. But we... Continue Reading
The Dead-end of Research Justice
In “Cynical Theories,” the authors demonstrate that modern Critical Theory is essentially applied post-modernism.
Critical Theory values epistemic diversity—as if spiritism or superstition are just as valid as rational and evidentiary forms of knowing. But we must insist that reason and evidence are universal values, not white ones. They are universal because they are gifts from God to be used for his glory, not to be discarded as racist... Continue Reading
Responding to Craig’s Proposals On The Eternal Generation Of The Son
Craig concludes his paper with a restatement of his thesis that the doctrine of eternal generation should be replaced with a model of social trinitarianism.
Craig’s claim that eternal generation should be rejected on exegetical, historical/philosophical, and theological grounds is itself open to challenge and debate. Furthermore, the alternative of social trinitarianism creates more problems than it solves. In the end, the Nicene doctrine of eternal generation should not be quickly abandoned by Christians. Properly understood, it most faithfully reflects... Continue Reading
He Knows What Is In The Darkness
We were not created to live in darkness.
There is something tremendous in this statement. So often, we see darkness around us. Daniel was living in dark days. He and his friends had been taken into captivity, forced to learn the foreign ways, and even had their Hebrew names changed. There was much darkness in their world, but they were learning that their... Continue Reading
Death in the Pot and the Meaning of Scripture
When reading Scripture consider these two questions: What is God teaching me about Himself? What is God requiring of me? We’ll then begin to accurately understand the meaning.
Most of us have never experienced a famine. We live in a land of such abundance of food that we have become vain to the point of widespread gluttony, excess, wastefulness, and discontent. How thankful should Christians be to the Lord for the abundance of food He provides each and every day? And Elisha... Continue Reading
An Open Letter to the Overcommitted Pastor
“Never confuse activity with accomplishment.”
Your personal devotional life will be the easiest thing to sacrifice, and the one thing you cannot afford to lose. The congregation will not know right away if your time with the Lord is suffering. You will still be able to preach sermons on Sundays, and you will be capable of recalling Bible verses when... Continue Reading
The Rarest Commodity
Ultimately, all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are only found in Jesus Christ.
When we come to Christ, we learn to live in a way that is pleasing to God. We seek after His instruction and walk in His ways. Jesus is the rarest commodity–the eternal wisdom of God and sole source of righteousness and life. It is Him we must learn to seek, find, and acquire more... Continue Reading
No Longer I Who Mother
Our strength, endurance, and joy can be daily and rigorously rooted in who Christ is for us and who we are in him.
When your children mature and become less dependent on you, and you start to feel useless, remember that in Christ you were created for good works before time began (Ephesians 2:10). God has important and necessary tasks for you in this new season. Those good works may have been more focused on your children for... Continue Reading
The Holy Love of God
Augustine of Hippo pointed out that the desire of every human heart is to experience a love that is transcendent.
The love of God is in a class by itself. It transcends our experience. Nevertheless, it is a love that He shares in part with us and expects us to manifest to each other. He grants to His people—insofar as is possible given the Creator-creature distinction—His holy love (Rom. 5:5). Long ago, Augustine of... Continue Reading
Pastor John MacArthur Responds To California’s Threats Of Imprisonment: ‘Bring It On’
Church attorneys argued in response to the letter that Newsom’s lockdown order violated half a dozen parts of the California State Constitution.
Grace Community Church received a cease and desist letter in August for holding in-person services banned under Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s pandemic lockdown order. The letter threatened the church with $1,000 daily fines and MacArthur with imprisonment if the church did not comply. Grace Community Church Pastor John MacArthur fired back a response... Continue Reading
4 Qualities of God-Honoring Work
Because of the curse, your job may involve painful toil and yield little satisfaction. But you can glorify God where you are by your heart attitude.
Work that is truly Christian is work well done. Genesis 1 logs God’s commitment to excellence when it says, “God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good” (Gen. 1:31). Christians should always do good work. Christians ought to be the best workers wherever they are. They ought to have the... Continue Reading
If You Think God Is Wrong, You Can Never Be Right.
If your explanation of the conquest of Canaan begins with “we cannot excuse or justify” what God has done, you are no longer doing Christian theology.
Christian theology takes it as axiomatic that God is good. He never does anything wrong. If your explanation of the conquest of Canaan begins with “we cannot excuse or justify” what God has done, you are no longer doing Christian theology. Your sources may be wrong. Your understanding of your sources may be wrong. You... Continue Reading
More than 500 Ethiopian Christians Killed In Targeted Attacks Since June
At least 500 Christians in Ethiopia have been murdered in the last two months by Islamists, according to a report by the Barnabas Fund.
Violence in Oromo has been ongoing since June 30, when popular Oromo singer and celebrity Hachallu Hundessa was shot dead in the capital. His murder revived long-standing tensions between Amhara and Oromo elites – the two largest people groups in the country. In the days following his death, 239 people were killed and more than... Continue Reading
Responding to Craig’s Critique On The Eternal Begotteness Of The Son
William Lane Craig argues against the eternal begotteness of the Son, however, eternal generation does not produce subordinationism, rather it guards against it
Orthodox theologians were able to maintain these distinctions by stressing two points: 1) Christians should use the language of “begotten” and “generation” because it reflects the teaching of the Bible, and 2) Divine generation must be sharply distinguished as radically different from human generation. When these points are carefully articulated, it allows for distinction between... Continue Reading
