There can be no genuine or transformative holiness in life until a person has for his primary and ultimate aim the glory of God alone. This is not optional, as if some who claim to know him in a saving way might choose to move in a different direction, with a different goal or aim.... Continue Reading

In the Old Testament, one of the first principles we learn about worship is that sincerity alone is not acceptable (see the narrative of Cain’s sacrifice in Genesis 4). The heart of worship in the Old Testament was objective; the ceremonies prescribed in the Law of Moses were realities apart from feeling and emotion. The... Continue Reading

The soul (or heart) has rightly been the emphasis in our theology. Here Scripture gives details that we could never see apart from God’s revelation to us. In the soul, we know God and turn toward him or away from him. Look for obedience or disobedience, faith or unbelief, and you will see the soul... Continue Reading

Don’t worry if nobody knows about you. Don’t worry if your ministry seems to be slim pickings. Don’t worry if your web traffic is quite low. Don’t worry that you are never invited to speak or share your story. Don’t worry if hardly anyone seems to know that you even exist. Worry instead about things... Continue Reading

I won’t go so far as to say that the breadth of God’s love (or any other dimension in particular) refers specifically to His plan to pour out His grace upon the Gentiles. Nevertheless, the expansiveness of the love of God is manifested in the expansiveness of the Gospel to all nations.   Much ink... Continue Reading

Here is a last word. A worldview without forgiveness, such as the worldview of CRT, offers no hope. There is no vision of a world in which this sin is defeated or redeemed, much less one in which the guilty are forgiven and restored. But the great message the gospel brings to the world and... Continue Reading

The alternative to BTTY is to seek meaning outside of ourselves in Jesus Christ. But how does faith in and submission to God—our infinite, external authority—satisfy rather than stifle us as human beings?   “Be true to yourself.” -EVERYONE This cultural gospel is so common it doesn’t strike us as odd. Put simply, BTTY asserts that... Continue Reading

Civil religion is not dead. It has simply gone woke. And in the new form, as in the old, a secularized and domesticated Christianity contorts itself to appear respectable to its cultured despisers.   Over the last few years, I have heard numerous Christians claim that the death of America’s old civil religion is a... Continue Reading

Christ’s confidence that God was “for him” as Son and faithful servant, and that God was “against him” as substitute and representative (surety), were both expressed in that one cry: “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” The cry doesn’t tell us everything about the atonement or what Jesus suffered, but it does... Continue Reading

Those who follow Christ are, like him, not of the world. For this reason the world may hate us. So we should ask God to keep us from the evil one and sanctify us in his truth.   Perhaps you’ve heard that Christians are (or ought to be) in the world but not of the world.... Continue Reading