Jesus proved to be a masterful chess player. He simply refused to get caught in verbal or intellectual traps, and in fact always managed to turn the heat back on the one who posed the challenge in the first place.
What’s the heart issue behind slander and gossip? The narcissistic duo of self-love and self-promotion. When we traffic in slander and gossip, we tear others down and build ourselves up.
The Holy Spirit works through the preaching of the Word to accomplish far more than a pastor will ever know, even in opposition.
At the heart of Sola Scriptura, is the recognition that fallen humans are always looking to replace God’s authority with some other human/creaturely authority
To say God’s mercy ultimately originates as a response to foreseen faith or mercy is to affirm election does depend on human will and exertion, rather than on God (contrary to v. 16).
To lament the decline of cultural Christianity is to lament not simply the loss of a Christian consensus, but the loss of the social capital born of common grace that secular society was borrowing from.
Like a good doctor, pastors must strive to present difficult truths in a clear, kind, compassionate manner. May we guard against our tendency to allow the tone of our message from hindering the truth from being heard.
During my time at SBTS, I’ve realized that I needed to leave ministry temporarily and give myself to studying the things of God full-time
If we ever appear to have exhausted our knowledge of God, we’ve certainly committed idolatry because we’re no longer talking about God.
Hyperbole and exaggeration can be effective rhetorical devices, grabbing our attention and constraining us to see what we didn’t see before, but they can also be used for ill and to mislead.
We’re beggars because the words of man will never fill our spiritual appetite. We need food from heaven. We need to hear from God.
Until heaven, our motives will never be as pure as they should be. But how can we know if they are carnal unless we first know ourselves?
The enemy would love God’s people chasing abstract and far-fetched untruths rather than sharing the good news of the gospel with their neighbors.
Oddly enough, the more knowledge I gain, the more rarified intellectual air tends to fill the inner balloon that is my ego. But these words are a deflating pin: “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”
Praying “Forgive us our debts” isn’t just a duty we have as sinners; it’s a privilege we have as sons.
How you live now is correlated with how you believe God is working towards eternity.
Religious liberty implies a recognition that individuals make conscientious decisions to participate in group associations that have different requirements and different callings than the rest of society and the state. In my view, these truths lead one inside the walls of a Baptist church.
The church needs a clear definition of its nature before it determines and actualizes its functions and activities.
