Honour Your Dishonourable Father
If you have a dishonourable father, honour him by being willing to forgive him.
So don’t be bitter. Especially since what you think about your parents reveals what you think about God. If you’re bitter about your parents, then you’re not being grateful to God. Still, forgiving your dishonourable father isn’t the only way to honour him. The Bible says, “The father of the righteous will greatly rejoice; he who fathers... Continue Reading
The Parts We Leave Out
In the monotony of the ordinary it is easy to forget God’s perspective and purposes.
God is sovereign over every square inch of his creation, and so he is equally sovereign over square inch of our lives. Our building, our dreaming, our working, our sleeping, it all fertile ground for growing in faith and giving glory to God. We just have to learn to see it. Unless the Lord... Continue Reading
On Wolves, Sinners, & Social Justice Hypocrisies
What does our outrage and call-out/cancel culture really say about us?
God gives grace to the humble but opposes the proud. If we want to see real change in our world, it starts right here, with our own sin. Go down, this day, to your own house justified, first. This will renew our motivations together in what we are trying to accomplish when we feel the... Continue Reading
Love is Not Heavy-Handed
Those who refuse to seek forgiveness from others prove that they have not experienced forgiveness from God.
When Jesus tells how to restore relationships, he has laid a table of tenderness. He has established a context of gentleness. He has told of the necessity of a kind of healthy-self doubt that acknowledges how blind we can be to our own faults. He will soon go on to tell that we must be... Continue Reading
Like A Dog Following After Two Men
If God is his master, he will follow and obey God. But if the world is his master, then he will follow after it.
An individual may pursue the world and retain a Christian profession at the same time and it is often difficult to ascertain whether God or the world possesses his affections. But by and bye he comes to a parting road where God calls him one way and the world another way. It is then that... Continue Reading
Redemptive Historical Preaching Under Fire
When we understand the history of the ancients through a redemptive historical grid, we also learn to understand our own history through God’s plan of redemption.
What does that plan of redemption involve? Scripture teaches us to trust in Christ for the forgiveness of our sins, it teaches us about grace, it teaches us about the fruits of grace in that Christ teaches us how to live in this world as He also saves us from our old ways and patterns... Continue Reading
Are Southern Baptists Still People of the Book?
A new rift is developing within the SBC, as it is in other conservative evangelical denominations.
This time the fight is not as much over Scripture’s inerrancy as it is over its sufficiency. The question is whether Scripture ought to be regarded as a comprehensive guide for the Christian life, the place where our inquiry starts and ends; or is it instead a mere touchpoint to be reinterpreted and mediated through... Continue Reading
The Unforgivable Sin
Jesus tells us that what a man blasphemes “to the Holy Spirit” (εἰς τὸ ἅγιον πνεῦμα) will not be forgiven.
The idea of blasphemy, especially in this context, is to denigrate the Holy Spirit (and the entire Godhead) in such a way that it harms the message of the truth. But, as we noticed in the phrasing of Luke 12:10, the term may also indicate that the blasphemy is directed towards (εἰς) the Holy Spirit. There are... Continue Reading
Did Jesus Die for Everybody?
Jesus’ death was a substitutionary death—that is central to the gospel!
Marvel at God’s love, marvel at Jesus’ redeeming sacrifice, marvel at the Holy Spirit’s sovereign regenerating work. Believer, take this to heart and cherish it: Jesus died specifically for you on the cross. Your salvation is purchased, paid for. Live like it’s so. Did Jesus die for everybody? This question seems rather simple on the... Continue Reading
Isn’t Christianity Just An Oppressive Set of Rules?
A Christian is someone who belongs in God’s family, and because of that is secure and blessed. It’s not to do with rules at all.
Christians often give the impression to the watching world that the rules matter the most. We give the impression everyone else should also follow the rules we do, even though they don’t trust in Jesus. That doesn’t make sense and turns people off Christianity. If all outsiders see is restrictions, where is the attraction in... Continue Reading
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