Articles on Theology
What Exactly is Replacement Theology? And Is It Biblical?
Back when we lived in the Chicago area my wife listened to Moody Radio, and she told me how they often spoke disparagingly of something called Replacement Theology. I’ll never forget one time hearing Janet Parshall sneeringly say those words as if she was spitting out...
Back to America’s Providential View of History, the Present, and the Future
Since the Covid debacle what I call the Gutenberg Press of the 21st century, known as the Internet, has proved as transformational as the first Gutenberg Press of the 15th century. The latter was instrumental in allowing the Reformation to sweep like wildfire...
Why Christianity Isn’t Moralism
I was born-again as an 18 year old college student into a kind of fundamentalist Christianity. In the late 70s there were two types of conservative Bible believing Christians, fundamentalists and Evangelicals. The former grew out of the fundamentalist-modernist...
Judgement as God’s Mercy Unto Repentance
A sentiment I came across on Twitter is common among some Christians: God destroyed Sodom for the same sins the world now celebrates. Judgment is coming. My reply: Actually, brother, judgment is already here. We see it in the fallout of the sexual "revolution." This...
Mere Christianity: Moses and the Bronze Snake in the Desert
This story we find in Numbers 21 is one the strangest in the Bible, and one the skeptics love. It’s absurd and clearly made up because looking at a bronze snake on a pole can’t heal anybody, obviously. You know, science and all that. But God isn’t limited to what...
A Christian Worldview Is Not Enough
Since I was twenty years old when I came across Francis Schaeffer’s The God Who is There, I’ve been a worldview guy. I went from a fundamentalist type of Christianity focused on the personal, on my relationship with Jesus, the Bible and me, to seeing how Christianity...
The Problem with Biblicism
If you’ve never heard the word biblicism, you would never know how prevalent it is in Evangelical Christianity, as in practically ubiquitous. Before I define it in detail and explain why it’s a problem, briefly it means in order to justify doing something or not,...
Pietistic Gnostic Dualism’s Influence on Modern Christianity
In a couple previous posts I wrote about what it means that the Christian’s citizenship in is heaven, and what it does not mean, and how the understanding of our spiritual home developed in the history of Pietism. This happened, along with the predictable consequences...
Peter Walking on Water – You Can Too!
Well, maybe not actual water, but in Christ we can do the seemingly impossible in not giving way to fear and doubt because circumstances are greater than our Savior God. The gospel story of Peter walking on water has been significant for my life in many ways. There...
The Importance of Both the Inner and Outer Body for the Christian
Since I got active on Twitter in early 2024, I often come across comments like this as people debate spirituality and physical fitness: From by what I can gathered and have observed by those who predominantly post about masculinity, not all but some, focus more on...
To a Thousand Generations: The Triumph of the Covenant
I was born and raised a Catholic which was my religious life until I went away to college at 18 and was born-again into an Evangelical and Protestant faith bearing little resemblance to Catholicism. The primary reason I embraced this new version of Christianity was...
Evangelicals and Their Ambivalence to God’s Law
I’m currently reading Greg Bahsen’s Theonomy in Christian Ethics, an extensive study about God’s law (theos-nomos) as it applies to ethics, the study of the principles of right and wrong conduct. We Evangelicals tend to have a love/hate relationship to God’s law. On...
Christians Granted on Behalf of Christ to Suffer for Him: To What End?
Nobody likes to suffer. Nobody likes pain. Discomfort discomforts us. Why do we complain? Because we don’t like something. Why don’t we like something? Because we only seem harm in it, not benefit. We are under the impression if everything in our lives is going our...
Moralism and the Horrible Freeing Ubiquitousness of Sin
Sin is all pervasive, ubiquitous. Like oxygen, in a fallen world it is everywhere. In my first 5 plus years as a Christian I tried very hard to be more moral, to do what is right and be obedient to God, but I wasn’t very good at it. Thus, guilt was a constant...
Recognizing the Spirit of God-Christology
For the first more than five years of my Christian life, theology was non-existent. There seemed to be this sense that theology was a distraction at best, and a waste of time at worst. If not overtly taught, I still picked up that theology would get in the way of the...
The Lord is Our Righteousness
The most important truth of the Christian life for me, the one that has had the most enduring impact is learning through time and experience, that Christ is my righteousness. In a dry and struggling time in my Christian journey, I decided no matter how I felt, I was...
The Importance of Knowing the History of Redemption for your Faith
My favorite metaphor for the Christian life is puzzles and puzzle pieces. Without the big picture into which all the pieces fit, the puzzle pieces are, well, puzzling. Without God in Christ, the ultimate big picture, the pieces never seem to fit. We look at one piece...
Calvin and the Three Uses of the Law
In the last year I’ve come into a new understanding and appreciation of God’s law, and it’s been a thrilling journey. Up until August of last year when I had what I call an eschatological awakening, I looked at God’s law much the way almost all Evangelical Christians...
Believe It or Not, God Wants to Bless Us
Most of my life I didn’t really believe this. I would never have said that explicitly, but somewhere inside I think I was always waiting for the other shoe to drop, something bad to happen. We all know life can be really hard, but “life” is not sovereign, God is. We...
John Calvin Believed in Free Will: Who Knew!
For the Calvin haters, and they are legion, I might have just uttered a heresy. I can imagine the reply in their fevered brains: No he does not! It’s been interesting since I became a certified Calvinist in 1985 to witness how some people respond to the name Calvin or...
Ezekiel: “Then They Will Know That I Am the Lord”
As I was reading through Ezekiel I was struck by how many times the Lord used this phrase, approximately 65 times. It’s fascinating because there is nothing like it in any other book of the Old Testament, and it’s not even close. It seems the Lord was trying to get...
Christ Or Caesar? Theonomy or Autonomy? Liberty or Tyranny?
These stark choices confront us like a brick in the face as they haven’t for a long time in Western history. They offer us a moral clarity that comes from the blessing of leftist, woke cultural Marxist overreach that began when Barack Obama assumed the presidency in...
Heart of Stone and Flesh, and a Valley of Dry Bones
I can’t be reading through the Bible and just pass Ezekiel 36 and 37 without comment. It has to be among my favorite passages in Scripture because it so wonderfully captures the monergistic nature of God’s working in us as I understand our salvation from sin. The word...
Uninvented: Jeremiah Doesn’t Make Up the New Covenant
There are so many angles to the uninvented argument, and one of the most important is theological, something I don’t get into much in the book. The Bible looked at in 20/20 Jesus Hindsight is theological genius (see Luke 24), and I would argue impossible to be made up...
Isaiah 61: A Planting of the Lord
In a recent post I made the case that the Lord is our salvation because He is our righteousness, that we can’t save ourselves. Isaiah 61 makes that same point beautifully, that our salvation is wholly the work of God. This Christian theological fact is what separates...
The Lord Himself is Our Salvation
I’ve concluded over these four plus decades as a Christian talking and listening to many Christians, that no matter what tradition they come from or their theological convictions, they are all Calvinists. What I mean by that is they all realize, every single one of...
Song of Songs and the Bride of Christ
Some Christians in church history, and maybe even today, are a bit embarrassed by the Song of Songs because it is so overtly sexual. Some try to allegorize it; the early church fathers were especially fond of this approach, or they might completely spiritualize it...
Psalm 112 and the Man Who Will Never Be Shaken
Reading through the Psalms is a wonderful experience. You could park on one for days mining the depths for nuggets of truth into the greatness of our God. And God is the point of all 150 of them. One of the reasons the Psalms have been so beloved over the millennia is...
Psalm 73: When I Tried to Understand All This . . . Circumstances People
Christians love the Psalms because we can relate to how they portray the messiness of life in a fallen world, and Psalm 73 is one of the most relatable. It starts with the fundamental Christian perspective on all things: 1 Surely God is good to Israel,to those who...
Stars in the Sky, Sand on the Seashore and Psalm 2
What if we are in the early church? Such a question would have appeared absurd to me not too long ago, but no longer. I’m now inclined to answer in the affirmative. As I no longer believe we’re necessarily in the “end times” (i.e., Jesus coming back any day), I now...
What Does Psalm 2 Really Tell Us?
In my previous post I argued that Christians tend to over spiritualize Psalm 2 by thinking it only describes a future spiritual reality when Christ returns in judgement. Evangelical Christians, of which I am one, tend to over spiritualize everything. Because of this...
Psalm 2 Is Happening Now!
I’ve made it to Psalms in my reading, and I’m amazed how much my perspective on Psalm 2 has changed. I always assumed it was talking about the future when Christ returned, and only then would God the Father make the nations Jesus’ inheritance, and the ends of the...
Uninvented: Job and the Nature of God
Reading through the book of Job, I’ve been trying to think through it from an uninvented perspective. I’ve realized it would be difficult to see it as merely a figment of human imagination, as if some ancient screenwriter was preparing a script on suffering for a...
Calvinism and the Inevitable Non Sequitur
I would wager that almost everyone coming across this lonely old blog post out on my very tiny corner of the windswept desolation of the Internet has some idea of what Calvinism is. Whether they are right or not is the topic I seek to address. Of course, being right...
How Donald Trump Turned Me into a Postmillennialist!
The very last thing I expected when Donald Trump came down the escalator to announce his run for the presidency on June 16, 2015, was the red pill I unknowingly swallowed that would eventually lead me to embracing postmillennialism. In case you don’t know what...
Wealth and Honor Come from You!
If you’re a sinner, you probably think this post is about you. I won’t say you’re so vain, but you probably get the point. If you read my last post, though, you already know the answer is . . . . God! I wrote about David’s words of praise for God in I Chronicles...
I Chronicles 29:10-13: David’s Life Transforming Praise for God
In my current jaunt through Scripture, much quicker than last time, I recently read this passage in I Chronicles and reflected on how significant it has been in the last five years or so of my life. When we moved from the Chicago area to Florida in early June of 2017,...
Rock of Ages and The Double Cure for Sin
One reason we’ve always gone to churches where hymns are sung is because the best hymnody is theology in song, meaning the study (ology) of God (theos) set to music. Much modern praise music unfortunately is more anthropology, more about man (anthropos), than God. And...
Hurricane Ian: Why?
During church yesterday, I got a lot of food for thought about the recent hurricane that hit southwest Florida, and as hurricanes are wont to do, caused so much damage and loss of life. I often think when suffering comes upon the world in some catastrophic way, how...
Deuteronomy 4: Theological Implications of God Rescuing His People from Slavery
In my last post I focused on some of the uninvented takeaways from this chapter, or why I think it couldn’t be made up. Briefly, if it was, the author was a liar, and the Bible is a worthless piece of trash. Not that I feel strongly about it or anything. You’ll...
Embrace The Suck! The Gravitational Pull of Sin
I apologize for the semi-vulgarity, but this has become something of a favorite phrase of mine of late. I guess it’s because life can so often seem so sucky to us. Things rarely go like we think we want them to, and even when they go like we think we want them to,...
Why I Love Hymns, And You Should, Too!
I’m one of a rare breed, those who love hymns, and will only go to a church where hymns are sung. When we were younger and moved to a new state (which has happened four times), we would go church hunting. A couple times with my wife and kids in tow we walked into a...
The Real First Christmas
No, it wasn't Bethlehem and Mary and Joseph, baby Jesus and a manger, shepherds keeping watch by night, a choir of angels, a bright star or wise men from the east. Actually, that first Christmas was the fulfillment of something that came way before that, and if you...
More Thoughts on Mars Hill: There is Something New Under the Sun, the Church!
In my previous post on the dysfunction that was much of Mars Hill church, I focused on The Church being full of sinners, saved sinners, but sinners nonetheless. So to be surprised when "stuff" happens, and sinners act like sinners, is silly. Even a cursory look...
The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill: Nothing New Under the Sun
Mars Hill was a phenomenon in the first decade or so of the century. The church grew, sprouted many campuses, and had an impact far and wide, driven by the intense and entertaining preacher who led it.
What Has Brandon to do with Christianity?
I try not to get into politics here, but it’s hard to avoided in the current political and cultural climate, so sometimes in must be addressed, thus Brandon and Christianity.
Revelation, Our Awesome God, and the Desperate Faith of Secularism
At my other blog I've been writing through the Bible the last seven plus years, from Genesis to Revelation (that might sound familiar to you hard core Genesis fans), and have made it to Revelation 4. I thought I'd share here a version of a post I did there about my...
Mercy Me and a Gospel Concert
Last week my son and I went to see the Christian band Mercy Me. Even though I'm not really a fan of the band, nor do I listen to Christian contemporary music (I don't listen to much of any kind of music anymore), it was an enjoyable concert. It was held at the arena...
Final Thought Experiment: The Revelation of God in Christ
God has revealed himself to us in creation, Scripture, and Christ. My first thought experiment post was on creation, and my second on Scripture. Now we come to the ultimate thought experiment, Jesus Christ, the Jesus who was from Nazareth who claimed to be Israel's...
Another Thought Experiment: Seeing Revelation in Scripture
In a previous post I mentioned that most mornings as I pray I thank God for his revelation in creation, Scripture, and Christ. I suggested a thought experiment that encourages us to see God's invisible qualities as we encounter creation every day, his eternal power...
Do You Want To See the Invisible God? Try This Thought Experiment
Most mornings when I pray I find myself thanking God for revealing himself in creation, Scripture, and Christ. I think how futile existence is without God's revealing himself to us. Without that revelation, the human race is like a blind man in a dark box groping...
A Porn Star and the Awesome Power of the Gospel
I've been a Christian for more than 42 years, and I am more blown away by the grace, mercy, and love of God in Christ than I have ever been. It continually astounds me how God in Christ can take lives wrecked by sin and guilt and shame, and turn them into something...
The Doctrine of the Incomprehensibility of God: Live It, Learn It, Love It!
It should be obvious that God is by definition incomprehensible, yet human beings, you and me included, somehow think we can comprehend him. This happens in subtle and not so subtle ways, but the pretension is the same. Somehow we think that our finite brains are...
When Death Comes Knocking, Our Hope: I Am The Resurrection and the Life
Death is, so to speak, a favorite topic of mine, and I’ve written about it here many times. I say “favorite” tongue in cheek, of course, because death is the topic we mortals most want to avoid talking about, let alone experience, whether that’s our own, or the death of those we love.
Thoughts on Dying: RIP Rush
I was going to write something on the dying of conservative radio icon Rush Limbaugh, and before I got to that I listened to this interview from the Dallas Theological Seminary’s The Table podcast about embracing our mortality.
Every Birth is as Miraculous as the Virgin’s Birth
Since this is Christmas, and we’re focused on the miraculous birth of a baby over 2,000 years ago, a baby who would be the Savior of the world, I thought it an opportunity to broaden our focus on the one who made that birth possible.
When All Doesn’t Mean All: Calvinism Gets it Right
I recently wrote a post on I Timothy 2, where Paul says something that is a favorite proof text for Arminians, but they ignore the difficulty the text presents for their position. Reformed theology has been a critical part of attempting to build an enduring faith in...
In Case You Hadn’t Noticed: We Live in a Fallen World
I write this, and my title, while we as a nation are in the middle of a bitterly contested election. It seems to many of us that a whole lot of chicanery is going on, or more accurately fraud and outright theft of a presidential election. We have lived through four...
Christianity Is a Religion of Knowledge: Seek It!
As I've been writing my way through the Bible, I've recently been engaging with Paul's letters, and his focus on knowledge in the life of the Christian has stood out to me. Since the Second Great Awakening in the early 1800s, for much of Christianity knowledge has...
A Dangerous Question: “I Asked the Lord That I Might Grow” by John Newton
One of the most important things to teach your children, and to remind them and yourself daily, is that life is hard. The root of anger, and bitterness, and frustration, and just an overall bad attitude, is to expect it not be hard, as if the difficulties in life are...
A COVID-19 Object Lesson: “You Will Be Like God …”
As distressing as this over-hyped COVID-19 pandemic has been (a real threat to only a very definable fraction of 1% of the population), there have been some silver linings.
Psalm 1 – Living Lives of Counterfeit Blessing
Our pastor last Sunday preached on one of the most profound Psalms in the Psalter, the first one, that which serves as the gateway to all the rest. Psalm 1 starts with the words, "Blessed is the man who . . . " The writer starts with the negative, that this blessed...
Psalm 115 – What Will it Be? Trust or Fear, Anxiety, and Worry
In my previous post I related how a sermon by our pastor on Psalm 115 inspired me to write about God verses idols.
Psalm 115 – To His Name be the Glory: God and Idols
On Sunday Our pastor preached on Psalm 115 in a service we actually attended in person, praise the Lord! It was a powerful sermon on a profound Psalm that addresses our everyday experience in the 21st century. The first verse sets the tone: Not to us, Lord, not to us...
Christian to Atheist to Christian Again: God’s Story of Redemption
I came across this video at the The Ten Minute Bible Hour of the proprietor, Matt Whitman, giving his de-conversion, and back, story, and at the end of the short video he critiques the now common deconstruction stories, as I discussed in my last post. Growing up a...
Watch This Movie, and be Freed from Practical Atheism!
On Friday I came across an article at Breakpoint about a movie called The Master Designer—the Song, and I, my wife, and son watched it in dumbfounded awe. It's so refreshing to watch a documentary about the wonders of the natural world and not be told over and over...
Private Property: Another (Necessary) Blessing of Christianity
In this unique time, to say the least, of an over-hyped pandemic (no doubt about that at this point), work and what it accomplishes, private property, is increasingly being seen for what it is, essential. How perverted is it when government tells us what is essential...
If There Was No Jesus, There Would be No Dignity in Work
Given that many Americans are unemployed through no fault of their own, and are chomping at the bit to get back to work, a few thoughts on Christianity and the dignity of work are appropriate. I'm currently reading How Christianity Changed the World by Alvin J....
Jesus of Nazareth: “Who do you say I am?”
These trying times are a reminder that the most important question of human existence came from a Jewish Rabbi 2,000 years ago: "But who do you say I am?" Jesus of Nazareth, objectively the most influential human being who ever lived, is himself life's ultimate...
I Corinthians 13 – This is Love
I'm working on a post about how Christianity completely transformed the world. In my other writing obsession, I've been writing my way through the Bible since April 2014, one of the best things I've ever done. God's word is a bottomless well of profundity that gets...
Why Reading the Bible and Prayer EVERY Day is the Best Apologetic-A Personal Story
Eight years ago or so I got on my knees, feeling like the miserable Christian I thought I was, and committed to God that I would read the Bible and pray every day. Whatever I could or couldn't do, I knew I could at least do that. I had been a Christian for 30 plus...
Reformed Theology and Building Our Children’s Faith
Those of you who are parents know those moments Madison Avenue has coined as "priceless." I had one the other night that thrilled my soul when my son said something to the effect, "I'm so glad that God is my salvation." The subtitled of my book gets at why this was so...
KORN Guitarist’s ‘Loud Krazy Love’ Documentary: Powerful
God saves sinners. That thought keep ringing in my brain as we recently watched a new documentary about the Brian Welch, the lead guitarist of a heavy metal band called Korn. Loud Krazy Love, is not for the faint of heart (or children), or those sensitive to F-bombs....
Acts 2:37-41 – Repent and Be Baptized: “The promise is for you and your children . . .”
At my other blog I'm writing my way through the Bible, one of the best things I've ever done, and something I highly recomend for anyone who loves Scripture and likes to write. The last couple mornings I've been focused on this passage in Acts, and I make the case...
Lessons from the Life, and Death, of Rachel Held Evans
Since everyone else it seems has commented on the unfortunate and untimely death of Ms. Evans, I figured I would as well because there are important lessons to be learned from her short time on this earth. In case you are not familiar with Evans, she was an author,...
What is the Gospel? Find Out at “Saints and Sinners Unplugged”
All Evangelical Christians know what the gospel is, right? It's the good news (in Greek) that Jesus died for our sins. Unfortunately, most Christians see the gospel as the means of becoming a Christian, and then it's on to other things, like learning how to become a...
“Don’t Let Me Down” . . . . They Always Will!
One of the most important things we can teach our children is that people will always let us down. I've tried all their lives to teach mine to have realistic expectations about human nature, others and their own. This way when people inevitably do let us down, we are...
“I am the way, the truth, and the life . . . . ” Exclusive Claims are Not Unique to Jesus
These famous, infamous for some, words of Jesus are followed by a further claim that offends many: "No one comes to the Father except through me." This was just as offensive to people in the Jewish and Pagan environment of Jesus' day, as it is in the secular...
And ah for a man to rise in me, That the man I am may cease to be!
I recently came upon this quote from 19th century British poet Alfred Lord Tennyson (from his poem Maud). I wonder how many people feel Tennyson's lament. I also wonder how many people understand that to be a follower of Jesus you must feel this way. What? You mean I...
The Ministry of Right Relationship: Love in Action
The older I get, the more I realize why Jesus said that the law and the prophets can all be summed up in . . . . love. The problem with love, "twue wove," is that it's hard, as in really difficult. That's because love means a certain dying to self, and we fallen,...
Sure Charlie Brown, I can tell you what Christmas is all about.
Every year our family watches A Charlie Brown Christmas. The show premiered on December 9, 1965, and the most powerful scene almost didn't make it on air. The CBS honchos were afraid a biblical declaration of the gospel coming from Linus would offend too many people....
Jesus May Be the Most Divisive Person in History
The pastor of the church we attend recently said these words, and because I've been slowly reading and writing through the gospels, I found them spot on. It's amazing to me, but not surprising, that Jesus is the most misunderstood person in history. Amazing because...
God’s Plan: Turning Everything Upside Down to Make them Right Side Up
I was reminded while reading Luke 8 recently, that God throughout Scripture, and ultimately in Christ, is completely counter cultural to all fallen cultures. Notice in this chapter how Jesus upends cultural expectations regarding women (several are named in this...
“that all of them may be one . . .”
These words of Jesus come from what's known as his "high priestly prayer" in John 17 where he prays before his crucifixion not only for his disciples, but for those who would believe in him through their message. That would include we who claim his name these two...
Calvinism and Free Will
One of the more frustrating things about being a Calvinist is the rampant misunderstanding about Calvin and his theology one encounters pretty much everywhere. Even among some of his followers! The old canard is the Calvinism equals determinism, but nothing could be...
The Gospel: Good News That God is Favorably Disposed Toward Us, Always!
I believe most Christians go through life with a sense of low-grade guilt because they don't really understand the gospel. The reason I say this is that I myself was this kind of Christian for many years of my adult life because I didn't either. What changed? You'll...
Why I Am A Paedobaptist, or Why We Baptize Children
Whenever I have put the word paedobaptist in Google, the first article linked is "Why I Am Not a Paedobaptist" by Tim Challies. One day maybe my little post here will come up high on such a search so people interested in the subject can get a competing argument,...
What Does It Mean We Are Forgiven From Our Sins? Part 3
In my last post I began to look at an Old Testament take on sin, and it's not a pretty picture. Until we understand the gravity of sin, and its horrific consequences in human existence, we'll have a hard time understanding and accepting that God could be angry about...
What Does It Mean We Are Forgiven From Our Sins? Part 2
In my previous post I explained how many of us miss what it means that we are forgiven of our sins because we only see it as being forgiven, and that's it. As I said, since immersing myself in the Old Testament for several years, I realized that in the gospel God was...
What Does It Mean We Are Forgiven From Our Sins? Part 1
Every Christian knows that being forgiven from our sins is Christianity 101. But if you ask most Christians what it means to be forgiven from our sins, I would wager that very few could answer with any confidence. I think a common answer would be something like a...
Is Jesus (i.e., God) Dying for our Sins Strange?
Skeptics are fond of mocking the idea that Jesus Christ had to die for our sins to reconcile us to God. Why can't God, I've heard some of them say, and write, can't God just forgive us. It can't be that hard; we confess, he forgives, we're good, right? No, it doesn't...
Falling in Love with . . . . God
I often think of what a relationship with God means for me and those I love. I may be something of an aberration, but as far back as 12 or 13 years old I was wondering about my existence in this big vast universe and what it all means. Like many sinners (i.e., all...
The implications of origins part 3 – Lucky Dirt Turns Out to be Not So Lucky After All
In my previous two posts (one and two) I argued that how we understand our origins, where we come from and why we are here, have implications for life that are all encompassing. If we, as Scripture declares, are creatures made in God's image in God's world, then we...
The implications of origins part 2 – Telos in a Baby’s Ear
In my previous post I argued that how we see our origins, where we and this universe comes from, have significant implications for how we see reality and live life, all-encompassing implications, both positive and negative. The reason this is important for keeping our...
The Implications of Origins Part 1: Wealth Lies in the Human Mind Made in God’s Image
In the beginning God created . . . We know this famous passage from Genesis 1, the first words of our Bible. What we often fail to appreciate, unfortunately, is how profound these words are in their implications for all of human existence. How human beings understand...
Why The Trinity Makes Perfect Sense Theologically and Logically
There are many things that separate Christianity from every other religion on earth, but nothing is more central than the Trinity. An important part of apologetics, and keeping our kids Christian, is to make the case that the Trinity is all over the Bible, from...
John 10 – Reformed theology and Keeping Our Kids Christian
Reformed theology has been instrumental, even foundational, in keeping our kids Christian. Looking back at Christian history this means that I find the faith explicated by men such as Augustine and Calvin more persuasive than Pelagius and Arminius. I was reminded of...
The Doctrine of Creation is Critical to Keeping You, and Your Children, Christian: Part 3
In the second of the three posts about creation I argued that naturalism is the default view of reality in our post-Christian secular culture. Even for people who do believe in God, they live their lives functionally as Deists. Even if God is there, he's not terribly...
The Doctrine of Creation is Critical to Keeping You, and Your Children, Christian: Part 2
In my last post I argued that the doctrine of creation is central to the entire history of redemption. For the Hebrews in the ancient world what differentiated them from the Pagan nations was that their God was the creator of the universe, while Pagan gods were...
The Doctrine of Creation is Critical to Keeping You, and Your Children, Christian
Some years back I decided for the first time in a very long time to read the Bible through cover to cover (I suggest you do that too!). I was sort of surprised, although I shouldn't have been, by the centrality of the idea (or doctrine) of creation to the narrative of...
Las Vegas: More Important Than The Killer’s Motivation to Do Evil, Is Why Evil Exists in The First Place!
Since the horrific events in Las Vegas many in the media have been obsessed with trying to figure out the motives of the psychopathic killer who killed close to 60 people in cold blood and injured about 500 more. More important to me, however, than what caused this...
The Joyful Exchange: Justification by Faith Alone
This coming All Saints Day (otherwise known in America as Halloween) Protestant Christians celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. On October 31, 1517 Martin Luther nailed his 95 Thesis to the church door at Wittenberg, and the Western world would never be...
Burning Man Festival: Woodstock on Post-Modern Steroids
In case you're not familiar with the Burning Man Festival, it happens in the Nevada desert every year for nine days around Labor Day. And what a nine days it is. I initially thought the title was a bit retrograde, a pre-feminist name for an event so post-modern that...
Man Shall Not Live on the New Testament Alone
I recently saw this title to an article and it instantly got my attention. One of the great shortcomings of the modern Evangelical church is it's lack of focus on the Old Testament. When I ask friends and family if they have read the Old Testament, all of it, I get...
The Indicative vs. The Imperative in the Christian Life
I bet those are two words you've likely never encountered in church before. What in the world do indicative and imperative have to do with Christianity? You won't find the words in the Bible, but you will sure find what they represent, and if they get mixed up all...
The Wages of Sin and Keeping Our Kids Christian
I guess this will be the last part of my little trilogy (previous two posts here and here) on the wages of sin, which Paul tells us is death. I made the claim that over the years my conviction of how we are saved has had a powerful impact on keeping our kids...
The Wages of Sin and Theology: Miracle Max Got it Right
In my previous post I talked about the wages of sin as it related to the movie Dunkirk. In this post I want discuss how the wages of sin relates to our salvation from sin, and specifically what in theology is called the doctrine of soteriology. Over the years I've...
Peter and the Deity of Christ
Who Jesus is, is the central question of human existence. If he was who he said he was, and if he is who the Council of Nicea in 325 said he was and declared by orthodox Christians ever since: God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made;...
LifeWay Research: Americans Are Fond of the Bible, Don’t Actually Read it
The Bible, the most influential book in American history, has fallen on hard times. According to a recent Lifeway Research survey, while Americans respect and many venerate the bible, it seems most never open one. Americans have a positive view of the Bible. And many...
Keith Green And Reflections on Our Love for God
Every Evangelical or "born-again" Christian of the boomer generation knows of Keith Green, a fervent evangelist (some would say almost prophet) musician who died way too young. When I was in college in the late 70s and early 80s, Keith Green's music was a large part...
Did A Crucified Man Named Jesus of Nazareth Really Bodily Rise From the Grave 2000 Years Ago?
It is a glorious thing that on this day all around the world billions of Christians celebrate the bodily resurrection of their Savior. Those who don't, think that those of us who do are deluded. Maybe we are, but the vast majority of those who reject the bodily...
The Historical Apathy of the Modern Evangelical: The Case of Baptism
Modern Evangelicalism is a hybrid of Christian traditions that came out of the Reformation. When I became a Christian in college I had no idea this was the case because I was taught that Christianity, the real kind, was just me and the Bible. My relationship with...
Notable Quotation
If man had his way, the plan of redemption would be an endless and bloody conflict. In reality, salvation was bought not by Jesus' fist, but by His nail-pierced hands; not by muscle but by love; not by vengeance but by forgiveness; not by force but by sacrifice. Jesus...
Notable Quotation
Almighty God, just because He is almighty, needs no support. The picture of a nervous, ingratiating God fawning over men to win their favor is not a pleasant one; yet if we look at the popular conception of God, that is precisely what we see. Twentieth Century...
Study Confirms Why Conservative Churches Grow and Liberal Churches Shrink
During the first half of the 20th Century, Mainline Protestant denominations were a large and powerful force in American culture. Protestant Christianity was mediated to America through these denominational bodies. This started to slowly change during what's come to...
How To Make Sure Your Kids’ Faith is Not All About Them
In my last post I wrote about the best way to ruin your kids faith is to make it all about them. It's an extremely easy thing to let happen if you don't actively take responsibility for the content and shape of your kids' faith. We live in a culture where the...
One Simple Idea to Eviscerate Your Kid’s Faith
Make it all about them! Yes, I know this is a blog, and book, about keeping our kids Christian, but what we must warn them against is also important if we are to make that keeping more likely. I recently learned about a Christian women. a famous "mommy blogger," who...
Jesus is never mentioned in Psalms, but best-selling author Tim Keller sees him there
When I saw the title of this piece by Jonathan Merritt who writes for the Religion News Service, I wasn't sure how to take it. Was he implying that Jesus isn't in the Psalms, and that Keller was reading that into the text. After reading the interview, I'm not sure...
D.A. Carson on “The God Who is There”
Don Carson is Research Professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in the Chicago area, an author of numerous books, and just a plain old brilliant guy. I've read several of his books, but recently came across a series of talks by him at...
Musician Sir the Baptist: I’m Anti-Religion, Not Anti-God
There is much talk in American culture about young Christians going off to college or into life and abandoning their faith. I'm sure there are many reasons why this is so, but I think one consistent reason is that teenagers see their parents and people in church live...
October 31: Reformation Day
But wait, I thought it was Halloween. Well, there would have been no Halloween with ghosts and ghouls and candy galore if not for Reformation Day. There is some argument among scholars as to whether Halloween has solely pagan or Christian roots. It is indisputable,...
Know Your Christology
Most Christians know very little in the way of doctrine or theology or church history. For many these seem at best unnecessary, for others they are downright dangerous. I am familiar with such thoughts because I was born-again into the Christian faith among such...
It’s the Sin, Stupid!
David Brooks is one of the token kind-of-conservatives at the New York Times, and I enjoy reading him because it is interesting to read someone who is not a committed conservative philosophically, but has something of a conservative temperament. He is also from what I...
An Arminian Response to the Problem of Evil
I was asked to lead a book discussion at my church on the problem of evil, and I decided on this book mainly because I've loved the previous books I'd read by him, and also because of the Amazon reviews. After reading it closely and leading a discussion over four...