Creation: The Complexity Of Life Points To The Existence Of A Creator God Who Brings Order From Chaos
Despite all of this compelling evidence, the vast majority of people seem to be taken in by the naturalist myth that life emerged by pure chance.
Physicist Paul Davies, the author of The Goldilocks Enigma¸which highlighted the unique fine-tuning of or planet for life, has now written a new book on life itself. The Demon in the Machine relates how the scientific study of life has shifted from focusing on life as a complex chemical system to an information processing system. This makes life even... Continue Reading
Holy Sexuality and the Gospel: Sex, Desire, and Relationships Shaped by God’s Grand Story
Understanding how we were made, how sin warps God’s intentions for us, how Christ is the answer, and how sexuality ultimately points to our glorious future in Christ.
I found Holy Sexuality and the Gospel to be a breath of fresh air. Yuan skillfully and appropriately explains how the Bible story relates to sexuality and what it means for each of us. He also dismantles false views many claiming the name of Christ import from psychology or other non-biblical frameworks. In his... Continue Reading
Is Social Justice Unjust? A Review
Social justice is not about notions of individual liberty and justice but about righting historical wrongs committed against various identity groups.
Rothman is not denying that certain groups have experienced injustice. On the contrary, he argues that certain classes of people have in fact experienced historic oppression and that their plight demands justice. His contention, however, is that so-called “social justice” has devolved into recriminations between identitarian movements on both the right and the left. He... Continue Reading
The Fulfillment of the Great Commission: A Responsibility of the Local Church
Christians who desire to go overseas will benefit from the constant recommendation that they must be actively involved in a local church.
Johnson is to be commended for the gospel-centrality of this book. Churches need a gospel-culture, which means pastors should be preaching the gospel, church members should know the gospel, and both should be sharing the gospel near and far. Moreover, Johnson offers a helpful take on missionary success: “Good gospel work won’t always yield immediate visible results,” for God is in control of... Continue Reading
Broken Pieces and the God Who Mends Them
I knew just enough of the story to know that it would rattle me vigorously. It did.
As I read the book I felt like I was being asked to carry a tiny fraction of the burden Simonetta and her family bore — and it was still onerous. But I also see the beauty of being part of a community where personal possession of painful knowledge is essential to burden-bearing. Lois... Continue Reading
Truth, Idols, and the 9th and 1st Commandments
I first read All That's Good by Hannah Anderson last fall, and I'm rereading it with a group of women from church.
If we ignore truth and the virtues of integrity and honesty, we will be drawn to something else. Hannah writes, “we will find consensus through shared emotional or subjective reality. We will retreat into tribes that validate our own experience and form communities around those biases and tendencies. And when this tribal or party identity is... Continue Reading
…but I Have a Couch
I prayed, and as I sat on my couch, asking God how to do hospitality for Him, a new concept came to me.
Perhaps the most helpful and practical thing to do is to look around and recognize what you have, and then be intentional about using what you do have to obey God. For example, I don’t have a large space, but I do have a couch. So, I now invite women to come share a pot... Continue Reading
Mere Calvinism
In my opinion, Jim Orrick’s Mere Calvinism is one of the finest introductions to Calvinism you’ll find.
Maybe I need to begin by answering these questions: Do we really need another introduction to Calvinism? And should someone like you bother with it? In both cases, I will answer in affirmative. We do need more introductions to Calvinism, not least because there are lots of people who may be associated with this broadly... Continue Reading
Unshackled: The God of WM. Paul Young
The question for discerning readers to ask is whether or not Young’s views measure up to the scrutiny of God’s Word.
It is a great irony that a book which sets out to challenge the so-called “lies we believe about God,” does in fact, promote views of God that fail to match the biblical record. First, Young promotes a soft view of God.Specifically, he argues that God is not in control. Lies We Believe About God is the... Continue Reading
The Color of Compromise
Outlines a history of systemic racism within the American political system and the American Church—a history of complicity in racism that Jemar Tisby argues remains to this day.
If The Color of Compromise was only six chapters long, it would have been, mostly, a good book. However, at the middle of the book, Jemar Tisby approves of heretical theology from social gospel preachers and liberation theology heretics like Walter Rauschenbusch and James Cone. And when he transitions from slavery and segregation to more modern events,... Continue Reading
