Most of us don’t like waiting. We are annoyed with lengthy checkout lines at the store, frustrated by long red lights, and (if you live in northern Indiana like me) depressed with the lingering of winter temperatures in the middle of April. But we especially don’t...
John Owen (1616–1683) has a reputation for being hard on sin — and even harder to read. Nineteenth-century Scottish professor John Duncan is famous for assigning Owen to his students with the warning, “Prepare for the knife!” And theologian A.W. Pink said he found...
Pediatricians diagnose some children with FTT (failure to thrive). The causes of FTT are many and varied, including genetics, sickness, and poor nutrition. But the diagnosis itself is given in cases of arrested development — when a child’s growth measurements fall...
Christianity is impossible without humility. John MacArthur has said that humility is “the foundation of all graces” and “the very center of the Christian life.” Calvin called humility “the sovereign virtue - the mother and root of all virtue,” and Jonathan Edwards...
There is no theological issue more complicated than the relationship between divine sovereignty and human responsibility. And this is no mere academic question, for our understanding here (or lack thereof) significantly affects such practical areas as...
For years, when I thought about prayer, I mostly felt guilty for my lack of a robust prayer life. Reading stories of great saints praying for two hours a day or more left me with a gnawing sense of defeat. I would often resolve to pray more. But the resolves didn’t...
Oliver Wendell Holmes said, "Some people are so heavenly minded that they are no earthly good." Not many of us could be accused of this today. And, in any case, the statement is wrong-headed, for as C. S. Lewis observed, "If you read history you will find that the...
A few summers ago, my three oldest kids and I discovered a great hiking trail just a few miles from where we live. It’s a trail through the woods that winds in and out of several parks just on the east side of the St. Joseph River, complete with a river shelter and...
In his classic book Preaching and Preachers, Martyn Lloyd-Jones described three different kinds of sermons that every pastor needs to preach: Sermons that teach or instruct. These are messages for the church with a more doctrinal or theological focus. Sermons that...
What does the doctrine of the Trinity have to do with the practice of prayer? Well, the Trinity is something that all Christians believe, but often find difficult to understand, much less explain. And prayer is something that all Christians do, but rarely practice...