There are some Bible verses that seem to go just a little bit too far. “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children … he cannot be my disciple” comes to mind, or “rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances.” And then…
The Christian faith is counterintuitive in any number of ways, but perhaps none so much as in its perspective on suffering and, particularly, its perspective on suffering persecution. We may see this most clearly in the actions of the apostles who, after being imprisoned and beaten, “left the presence of the council rejoicing that they…
This marks the final entry in a series of videos I’ve very much enjoyed putting together: The Great Sermon Series. And for this last video we are going in a different direction by looking at a not-so-great sermon. Joel Osteen’s “The Power of I Am” may be the most popular sermon on YouTube, but it’s…
He’ll Love Us Now – “It is not hard for me to believe God has put away all my old failures that occurred before new birth. What is hard is to believe that God continues to put away all my present failures that occur after new birth.” Dane Ortlund goes to Romans 5 to find…
There are many, many resources available to us if we wish to teach our children their Bible stories so they can live moral and upright lives. We can teach them to be like Noah, that man of great faith who endured years of scorn before finally receiving vindication; we can teach them that David trusted…
Some time ago a reader of this site, a new Calvinist, wrote to ask, “If a person is ‘a child of wrath’ from birth due to Adam’s sin and unable to choose God because of Adam’s sin, how is he responsible for his actions if he was born this way (and has no ability of…
I began my day in the subzero temperatures of a frozen Canadian winter and ended it in balmy, eighty degree California. It has been almost twenty four hours since I woke up and my eyes are starting to do some weird twitchy thing that happens when I get over tired. I need to get to…
This review is appearing in the current edition of the Journal of Modern Ministry (edited by Dr. Jay Adams). You can view the Journal’s site here. Though I am still relatively young, I am old enough to remember libraries that relied upon card catalogs. In the days before computers were used to index and organize…
John Mark Karr has been cleared in the slaying of JonBenet Ramsey. Clearly a sick and disturbed individual, Karr claimed responsibility for a crime he did not commit. Only a monstrously sick individual would claim responsibility for the rape and murder of a 6-year-old knowing full well that the crime was not his. Some are…
It seems that people were surprised to learn, in an article I wrote last week, that I presume my children to be unsaved. The article, What’s Dead Looks Dead, expressed my belief that my children (ages 6, 3, and 3 months) are, at this time, likely unsaved and are thus spiritually dead. The subsequent discussion…
I was about eighteen years old the first time I saw a dead person. Just a few days earlier my grandmother had unexpectedly suffered a massive heart attack and had died nearly instantly. The family was given the opportunity to say “goodbye” to her before the funeral. We were ushered into a room in the…
This post comes from within the Feedback Files. The Feedback Files are the questions I receive from readers via the Contact page. I thought it would be informative to open some of these questions and answers to the community. Recently a self-professed “Baby Calvinist” wrote to ask, “If a person is “a child of wrath”…
I was about 18 years old the first time I saw a dead person. My grandmother had unexpectedly suffered a massive heart attack and died just a few days earlier, and now the family was given the opportunity to say “goodbye” to her before the funeral. We were ushered into a room in the funeral…