Whether it’s on social media, the radio, or on TV, events like police officers being shot, Black...
Biblical Worldview
Scripture is Not a Choose Your Own Adventure Book
I remember as a child reading numerous books in the Choose Your Own Adventure Series. This...
Is It Wrong to Have an Opinion?
“I have my own opinions about things in the Bible.” This was a statement my daughter noted to me...
Lessons From the Garden: Existence, Relationships, and Processes – The Tragedy of Sin
Something happened in Genesis 3 that shifted the course of history and impacted the entire universe. It seemed like such an innocent or unimportant action as after all, what is the big deal with eating something? We all need to eat right? Shouldn’t we as humans be...
Lessons From the Garden: Existence, Relationships, and Processes – State of Perfection in the Original Creation
In the book of Genesis, we find God as Creator. The first two chapters of Genesis outline God’s creative activity, most notably His description of that activity as being good with the conclusion by God that everything He had created was very good. It is vital to...
Lessons From the Garden: Existence, Relationships, and Processes
We spent some time last year engaging various issues I labeled as “Lesson from the Garden”. Why start at the beginning and focus so much on the book of Genesis? I firmly believe that until a proper and well-rooted foundation is built from those formative pages of...
Calling Evil Good: A Lesson From the 2016 Super Bowl Halftime Performance
Another Super Bowl has come and gone. All the hype over the actual game and all the excitement over what company produced the most entertaining commercial will soon be a distant memory. What might remain somewhat vivid in our memories is the halftime show which again...
Lessons From the Garden: The Sabbath
Genesis 2:1-3, "Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, along with everything in them. On the seventh day God was finished with his work which he had made, so he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. God blessed the seventh day and...
Anyone Seen My Dictionary?
There exists today a rampant problem of biblical illiteracy. Dr. Albert Mohler, in addressing this grave issue, recently noted, “The larger scandal is biblical ignorance among Christians. Choose whichever statistic or survey you like, the general pattern is the same....
Lessons from the Garden: God’s Covering of our Nakedness
Over the past couple of weeks at a Bible Study I have been attending, we have been exploring some fundamental aspects of Scripture and theology in general. As a starting point, a necessary one I might add, the discussion has centered on Genesis 1-4 for it is in these...
Lessons from the Garden: The Faults of the “Blame Game”
The book of Genesis is the book of beginnings. It is stated to be that of course because it outlines the creation of the universe. Another reason it is labeled in that manner is because it is a book of foundations – skip this book and you truly will have a difficult...
Lessons from the Garden: Talking Snake or Anointed Covering Cherub?
There is one specific element of Genesis 3 that has recently fascinated me and that is the question as to why Eve is not portrayed as being surprised when the “Serpent” spoke to her. One of the traditional views can be found in the artwork that is often used to depict...
Lessons from the Garden: The Theological Importance of No Animal Death Before Sin
Other than the discussion over the issue of how long the days of Genesis 1 are, arguably one of the most heated debates among evangelicals on the issue of origins is whether there was any death and more specifically, whether the is a biblical case for animal death...
Thoughts from The Theocratic Kingdom: Proposition 3
In Proposition 3, George Peters states: "The meanings usually given to this kingdom indicate that the most vague, indefinite notions exist concerning it." I find this true regarding a number of theological terms, perhaps most notably the recent focus on naming...
A Relook at the “Lessons from the Garden”
Late in 2015 I began a series titled “Lessons from the Garden”. It is my firm belief that in order to understand Scripture, one must begin with the beginning pages of Genesis. If we are to understand sin, we have to look at how Genesis presents life before and after...
Resolute Resolutions
It is that time of year again when people begin to think about their goals and aspirations for the upcoming year. A new year is a time of new beginnings and with it comes the so-called “New Year’s Resolutions”. For some their goal will be to lose weight (guilty). For...
Rick Phillips – The Bible and Homosexuality: Wrong and Right Lessons
The news broke this week that City Church San Francisco has reversed its prohibition against practicing homosexuals being admitted into church membership (see here). Previously, only celibate homosexuals were accepted as biblically faithful Christians. Senior Pastor...
Rick Phillips – The Ten Commandments as God's Moral Law
Many Christian commenters today are expressing concern about antinomian tendencies in the church. We are especially seeing attempts to downplay the role of God's law as a guide to Christian living (the so-called third use of the law). One question that comes into play...
Reflections on Genesis 25-26
Genesis 25-26 After the death of Sarah, Abraham took another wife named Keturah. She bore him 6 sons. Abraham gave all that he had to Isaac as well as providing gifts to the sons of the concubines Abraham had, sending those individuals away to the East so as not to be...
Tony Reinke – Lecrae Confesses Abortion, Invites Others into the Light
As the forty-second anniversary of Roe v. Wade draws near, we are reminded of how large and formidable the abortion industry has become in the United States. Planned Parenthood survives with a heavy dose of government funding, even as overall abortion numbers are down...
Robert Gagnon – The Closing of Discussion in the Public Square: Bowing to the New Social Orthodoxy
Sadly, most Christians in the United States, when it comes to recognizing the dangers to their civil and religious liberties, sleep the sleep of ignorance that the disciples slept at Gethsemane before the arrest of Jesus. It ought to be obvious by now how “sexual...
Kenny Luck – The Deadly Deception of Sexual Atheism in the Church
The guy sitting across from me is a professing and practicing Christian. He drops by my office unannounced today to talk to me about his new online-dating life. Specifically, he wants to talk about the overwillingness of Christian women he has encountered on several...
Timothy Paul Jones – Reza Aslan and “The Jesus of History”
“The more I probed the Bible,” Reza Aslan declares in the introduction to his bestseller Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, “the more distance I discovered between the Jesus of the gospels and the Jesus of history” (xix). The result of this discovery—at...
David Hall – Jesus' Law About Anger
Often we will read in the newspaper or see on the TV news about a road-rage killing or some other situation in which anger gets out of control and leads to a homicide. For example, a woman is attacked, her attacker was consumed with anger or lust, and then her...
Sinclair Ferguson – What Is Discernment?
Someone I know recently expressed an opinion that surprised and in some ways disappointed me. I said to myself, “I thought he would have more discernment than that.” The experience caused me to reflect on the importance of discernment and the lack of it in our world....
Nicholas Batzig – The Importance of Being a Pastor/Theologian
I have a theory about why God seems to use pastor/theologians in the ways in which He does in the world. I have come to believe that God blesses the labors of pastor/theologians who give themselves to him and the work of the church in a way that He often does not do...
R. C. Sproul – Christians Should be Forgiving People
When someone orders us to do something, or imposes an obligation, it is natural for us to ask two questions. The first question is, “Why should I?” and the second is, “Who says so?” The why and the authority behind the mandate are very important to the question of...
John Murray – Catechizing: A Forgotten Practice
It is surely an indictment of the Church today that in dealing with the subject of catechizing we have to begin by explaining the very meaning of the term. What was looked on as a necessary and beneficial practice by the early church and by the Reformers has now...
Tim Challies – 6 Great Reasons To Study Doctrine
I love doctrine. Doctrine is simply the teaching of God or the teaching about God—the body of knowledge that he reveals to us through the Bible. I guess I’m one of those geekly people who loves to learn a new word and the big idea behind it. But I hope I do not love...
Fred Butler – Hard Truths For Theistic Evolutionists (Part 3)
Genesis as absolute beginning out of nothing Christianity has historically affirmed that the first chapter of Genesis describes God speaking the material universe into existence for the first time out of nothing. What is traditionally called creation ex nihilo by...
Fred Butler – Hard Truths For Theistic Evolutionists (Part 2)
On Death, Dying, and Suffering Theistic evolution is the belief God brought about the present variety of life on earth by the process of evolution. In a manner of speaking, the very term “theistic evolution” is oxymoronic. A radical discontinuity exists between the...
Fred Butler – Hard Truths For Theistic Evolutionists (Part 1)
God’s Character and the Doctrine of Inspiration Theistic evolution has emerged in recent years as the “go to” explanation that attempts to accommodate the historical narrative of Genesis with the evolutionary theory of life. Even though theistic evolutionary...
Martin Ayers – Ministering to Doubting Christians
1. The Problems of Doubt Instinctively, we are accustomed to the concept of doubt. Living after the Fall, doubts are the struggles Christians have to believe, or trust, the promises of God in Christ. Doubt is uncertainty – or a struggle to believe – in the heart of...
Christina Fox – The Cure for Our Envy
A friend sent a text to share with me about an amazing restaurant she went to. She described the wonderful meal she enjoyed and included a photo. I began to text back, “I’m so jealous!” but paused, then hit delete and changed it to “I’m so envious!” before hitting...
J. C. Ryle – Faith and Assurance
“I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith; henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day; and not to me only, but unto all them also that love His...
Jeremiah Burroughs – The Incomparable Excellency and Holiness of God
"Who is like unto Thee, O Lord, amongst the gods! Who is like unto Thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders!" (Exodus 15:11) This Scripture is this day fulfilled in our ears and before our eyes. That which God has already begun to do for this...
Daniel Doriani – The Importance of Sound Exegesis
A Bible scholar walks into a friend’s kitchen and sees a magnet fixing a diet plan to the refrigerator door. It reads, “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you … to give you hope and a future’ ” (Jer. 29:11, NIV). Is his dieting...