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  • Tearing Us Apart

    Tearing Us Apart

    Abortion has always been an important cause to me. When I was very young my parents—and my mother in particular—were heavily involved in pro-life work in Toronto, so much so that the history of one of its pregnancy care centres (which, for a time, I had the joy of serving on the board of directors)…

  • The Epic Story of the Bible

    How to Read and Understand God’s Word

    The Bible can be an intimidating book. I suppose any book of the Bible’s size can be intimidating merely by virtue of its page count. But then there’s also the claims people make about the Bible—that it’s a book that transforms lives, that it’s a book that reveals the mind of God himself, that it’s…

  • He Is Not Ashamed

    He Is Not Ashamed

    We are at an interesting point in history in which, when people look to the past, they seem more likely to cringe than to celebrate. It has become customary for people to look to their forbears and then disavow them or apologize for them in what has become almost a ritualistic purgation. There are many…

  • From Everlasting to Everlasting

    From Everlasting to Everlasting

    I have fond memories of the early days of the Reformed resurgence. These were the days in the early 2000s when so many people were discovering, or rediscovering, the deep and historic truths of the Reformed tradition. Everyone was writing about the five solas and the five points, marveling at how they display God’s glory.…

  • On Worship

    On Worship

    Though we are 2,000 years past the founding of the New Testament church, we are seemingly still confused about how we ought to worship God. There are many competing philosophies of worship, many disagreements about everything from its purpose to its God-ordained elements and methods. We know we must worship, but we so often don’t…

  • Grace for Sinners to Love Like Saints

    Grace for Sinners to Love Like Saints

    I am often asked how I read so many books. My pat answer is something like this: “The more you read, the easier it gets. When you’ve read 8 books on marriage, the 9th goes really quickly.” The point is that there is a kind of sameness to Christian publishing where books tend to focus…

  • the Air We Breathe

    It’s the Air We Breathe

    At the end of the Second World War the Allied nations began to “denazify” Germany. After the final surrender, they began the long process of identifying Nazis and uprooting the influence of Nazism across all of society—in culture, media, economics, and politics. The goal was to create a Germany that was post-Hitler and, therefore, post-Nazi.…

  • Pure

    The Bible’s Plan for Sexuality Isn’t Outdated, Irrelevant, or Oppressive

    Do you remember the purity movement? Or perhaps it’s better to ask this: How could you possibly forget the purity movement? Though in many ways its aims were noble—sexual purity among teens and young adults—its methods were more than a little suspect and, in the long run, often even harmful. It framed sexual purity as…

  • Gospel People

    Should We Abandon “Evangelical?”

    The word evangelical seems to have fallen out of favor, and perhaps for reasons that are understandable. Where the word once had a distinct Christian meaning, in recent years it has come to be conflated with politics as much as religion, with civil issues as much as spiritual. Many wonder whether the term is worth…

  • Faith in the Wilderness

    Listen to the Church in China

    Christians in the West hear a lot about the church in China. We hear of its growth, of its strength, of its suffering, of its perseverance. We admire it and often laud it, yet in truth know very little of it. Though we often hear about the church in China, we rarely hear from the…

  • The Loveliest Place

    We can sometimes get dismayed as we think about the church. We can sometimes get frustrated or even embittered. And sometimes our dismay is fair, for the church is made up of people who, though they love the Lord, still sin against God and still harm one another. Though it is a blessing to belong…

  • Men We Need

    What Kind of Men Does the Church Need?

    Masculinity has become complicated. At least, it has become difficult to be confident about what it means to be a man—to be a man as God has designed men to be. The culture has plenty to say about masculinity that is toxic, but far less to say about masculinity that is good and honoring. We…

  • Health Wealth Prosperity

    Health, Wealth, and the (Real) Gospel

    Wherever the true gospel makes inroads, we can be sure that false gospels will follow close behind. Wherever the true gospel begins to win the hearts of men, we can be sure that false gospels will begin to compete with it. And sure enough, one of the most attractive, most deceptive, and most pernicious of…

  • Strange New World

    Strange New World

    Whatever else is true of the modern, Western world, this much is beyond dispute: It is not what it used to be. We have entered into a new world that is very different from the one that came before, a new world that in many ways feels so very strange. Many of us feel like…

  • Is It Unspiritual To Be Depressed

    Is It Unspiritual To Be Depressed?

    Is it unspiritual to be depressed? Or perhaps, said better, is it necessarily unspiritual to be depressed? Most of us would agree that the answer is “no.” Of course we would want to include some nuance to affirm that spiritual malaise or emotional despondency can sometimes be the result of sinful thoughts or actions and…

  • Social Media

    The Real Cost of Social Media

    Like it or not, we live in a world dominated by social media. While many older forms of media continue to exist and to exert their influence, all have in some way had to bow before the ascendancy of new media. It is pervasive, it is ubiquitous, it is addictive, and it is changing everything.…

  • Same Words Different Worlds

    Same Words, Different Worlds

    I have been meaning to write a review of the latest book by my friend Leonardo De Chirico: Same Words, Different Worlds: Do Roman Catholics and Evangelicals Believe the Same Gospel? Leonardo is a pastor and scholar in Rome whose primary area of expertise is a Protestant perspective on Roman Catholicism. In this review, written…

  • Only Human

    You’re Only Human

    You know as well as I do that you are a finite being. Yet you know as well as I do that at times you fight against your finitude, you battle against your inevitable limits and boundaries as if they are a problem to be overcome or even a sin to be repented of. Yet…

  • 50 Ethical Questions

    50 Ethical Questions

    These are confusing times, aren’t they? These are confusing times for those who wish to live according to God’s Word and unto God’s glory. There is a host of questions we need to wrestle with, a host of ethical dilemmas we need to consider. Is abortion permissible? Is it permissible in cases of rape or…

  • Iron Sharpens Iron

    Friendship and the Grace of God

    Most of us are familiar with the term “means of grace.” Means of grace are the ways in which the Holy Spirit works in our lives to lead us into holiness. You might think of them as the “channels” through which sanctifying grace flows from God to his people. Most prominently he does this through…