Preaching the Good News
It is very common in my sermons for me to make an evangelistic application to the text. Those who hear my sermons often will recall that it isn’t unusual for me to make a statement applying the text by imploring…
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A Plea for Meekness
“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” (Matthew 5:5) Evangelicalism is a house divided politically in 2020. The last few weeks have seen major evangelical volleys back and forth over the political divide. The brouhaha started with…
Vices Masquerading as Virtue
I stumbled upon something Gregory the Great wrote warning how vices often masquerade as virtues.* It made me pause and reflect. Here are some of his words: Often, for instance, a niggard passes himself off as frugal, while one…
Healing His Patient Slowly
Recently, I preached on the devastating consequences of Jacob’s polygamous and incestuous marriage to Leah and Rachel. This was not the first time the Old Testament confronts us with the sticky problem of polygamy. It first appears in the genealogical…
My Worst-Selling Book
I kind of stumbled into becoming an author. I began as a reader and a thinker in the church, connecting a lot of dots in my reading that led to more convictions and questions. And I couldn’t find the next…
Living with Anxiety
As one of the many people living with an anxiety disorder, I hope to use this article to pass along a few things I have learned which might prove beneficial to you, and as always to dispel certain misperceptions. Rather…
Who Drops Dead in the New Testament?
You learn a lot about what matters to someone by what drives them to extremes. Think of a person camping out, lining up in the rain, to get concert tickets. Think of a couple paying physical and emotional costs to…
Communing with Christ in the Supper
Recently, a video of Francis Chan surfaced in which he tries to explain what he now believes about the real physical presence of Christ in the Lord’s Supper. Without wishing to dissect the many erroneous arguments Chan made about the…
The Forsaken Monarch
Over the Christmas and New Year holiday, I treated myself to read Volume II of Amy Mantravadi’s Chronicles of Maud series, The Forsaken Monarch. At first, I couldn’t decide whether to read it on Kindle or in print, as I…
The Struggle in the City
Roman Catholics and Protestants alike often appeal to the massive body of works penned by Augustine, Bishop of Hippo. The thinking behind the Reformation was seeded by the ad fontes principle of the Renaissance, and for theologians those sources were…