What is involved in the idea of the Father, or Jesus, being a judge? This is something J.I. Packer deals with extraordinarily well in his book Knowing God. Let’s track with him just briefly to see our good God in his function of just judge. Here are 4 characteristics of the judge. The judge is…
The Great Wall of China is one of humanity’s greatest architectural achievements. Its sheer size is almost incomprehensible. Extending across what was once the northern frontier of China, the wall stretches for over 5,000 miles—so long and so prominent that it is visible from space. And yet, for all its magnificence, today it serves no…
Sometimes it is the unexpected things that get you. Sometimes it is the words you have heard or said or sung a hundred times over that suddenly leap off the page—words like “My sin, not in part but the whole.” The words come, of course, from the much-loved hymn “It Is Well With My Soul,”…
I suppose we are all familiar with the categories of sin and depravity. We are all familiar with the Bible’s ugly descriptions of fallen humanity and equally familiar with the internal corroboration of our hearts and the external corroboration of our lives. The simple fact is, we are sinners. We are people who have offended…
We Calvinists probably have a heightened awareness of our own depravity. After all, we proclaim it right at the beginning of our favorite acronym, TULIP. What makes our total depravity all the more remarkable is the grace of God that still counts us as valuable. In his work The Mystery of Providence, John Flavel offers…
R.C. Sproul’s book Chosen by God is undoubtedly one of the most important books ever written on the subject of God’s sovereignty in salvation. Certainly it is the only one that has sold 200,000 copies! It has been invaluable in helping me, and so many others, navigate a very tricky topic. Here are 10 great…
Testimony is a good Christian word, isn’t it? It is a word we use to describe a person’s account of their conversion. At Grace Fellowship Church we ask people to share their testimony aloud before they are baptized, and to send it in printed form to the members of the church as they apply for…
Nancy Pearcey’s Total Truth is a book I have read and re-read, and one I intend to read again in the very near future. As I flipped through it today I came across the fascinating account of her conversion. While still at L’Abri, I had once accosted another student, demanding that he explain why he…
My time of prayer began today with a verse from Isaiah. Right there, on the very first card I saw, was one of my favorite texts. The Lord speaks to his people and assures them, “I, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins”…
There are few things I pray for with greater frequency or intensity than the salvation of my children. I long for them to be saved, and long to be able to be able to call them not only my son and daughters, but my brother and sisters. I long for them to profess faith, and…
My favorite book on the cross is Frederick Leahy’s The Cross He Bore, a series of powerful meditations on the death of Jesus Christ. Almost any section of the book would make for useful meditation on Good Friday, but this one stood out and merits being shared. Gethsemane means “the oil press.” David could say,…
This is the 20th installment in a series on common theological terms. See previous posts on the terms theology, Trinity, creation, man, Fall, common grace, sin, righteousness, faith, pride, election, revelation, atonement, adoption, sanctification, incarnation, idolatry, the church, and holiness. In the 9th sermon of John Piper’s epic series on the book of Romans he…
This is the fourteenth installment in a series on theological terms. See previous posts on the terms theology, Trinity, creation, man, Fall, common grace, sin, righteousness, faith, pride, election, revelation, and atonement. “Our first point about adoption is that it is the highest privilege that the gospel offers” (J. I. Packer, Knowing God, 206). J.…
This is the tenth installment in an occasional series on theological terms. See previous posts on the terms theology, Trinity, creation, man, Fall, common grace, sin, righteousness, faith, and pride. Election is the term the Bible uses to refer to God’s act of choosing people to salvation. Paul unpacks this meaning most clearly in Romans…
When it comes to supposed contradictions in the Bible, a classic example is Paul vs. James on the subject of justification. Paul says, “For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law” (Romans 3:28). James says, “You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith…
In 1981, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta published a report saying that they had identified, without probable cause, five cases of a rare strain of pneumonia among men in Los Angeles. By the following July, this disease, now appearing in isolated pockets around the world, was given the name Acquired Immune…
Today we continue our project of reading through John Stott’s classic work The Cross of Christ. We’ve now moved onto Part III which discusses “The Achievement of the Cross.” Here Stott begins to move from the event itself to the consequences, “from what happened on the cross to what was achieved by it.” The Bible…
How can I know that I’m a Christian? This is a question most of us have faced at one time or another, and even if we have not asked it ourselves, it’s likely that someone has asked for our help in wrestling through it. I recently came across an article from Michael McKinley that provides…
Today I would like to make 3 statements about a subject that is always relevant to Christians: assurance of salvation. This is an area of great confusion for many believers and an area that can lead to great discouragement. I am going to make 3 statements about assurance and then, Lord willing, follow up tomorrow…
This weekend I spent a little bit of time reflecting on a couple of seemingly random books: Michael Horton’s Christless Christianity and Rick Warren’s The Purpose of Christmas. But they’re not random–they are in many ways books that approach an issue from opposite directions. Throughout his book, Horton emphasizes the importance and transcendence of the…