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.
Being liked is the currency of our social relationships, seen in everything from the unspoken gravitation toward one person over another at a party to the digitized tokens of attention we exchange on social media.
Isolation and loneliness are common struggles for even the most extroverted pastors, and they remind us that those called to shepherd God’s flock need ministry too.
When we fail to be kind to brothers and sisters in Christ, we are failing to trust God in some way, perhaps his power to change hearts or the sufficiency of his Word.
If you’re someone who loves old books—because you love church history and want others to share your enthusiasm—group Bible study can seem like a balancing act between trying to be helpful on one hand and appearing prideful on the other.
Disputed and disdained though it may be, predestination and its sibling, election, are plainly taught in Scripture and every exegete must make peace with it.
