hope

It’s not too often that one goes to Genesis to find instruction on Biblical preaching, but there is a fascinating, and I think helpful example of good, Biblical preaching within this book of beginnings. The example comes in chapter 41, where Joseph, a prisoner of Potipher, is brought to stand...

Every Christian can readily acknowledge, ‘I’m not what I used to be; but I am not yet what I will be!’ We are all very much a work in progress. This is reinforced by the verb tenses the Bible uses to refer to different aspects of salvation: we ‘have been saved’ (Eph 2.8), ‘…are being saved’ (1Co 15...

The believer, by rights, is best able to bear bad news. After all, we believe that we are morally corrupt, unable to reform ourselves, and so incorrigible that the only solution was that the Son of God live and die in our place. If we can accept that, we should be able to face hard truths about our...

Romans 15:13 “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.” That is a prayer found near the end of Romans just as Paul begins to round out his greatest letter. Christians have always been in awe of the magisterial...

One vital component to the humiliation and exaltation of Christ is His ascension into heaven. The ascension is as central to the work of Christ as His death and resurrection, yet today it is largely unnoticed by the average evangelical believer. Our tendency is to focus on the cross of Christ while...

When we think about the humiliation of Christ, we often focus chiefly on His death and the suffering that immediately preceded it. However, in order to view things from an eternal perspective, we must also consider His Incarnation itself: the point when “the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us...