People who laugh at the claim that there is a transcendent moral order do not think that racial genocide is just impractical or self-defeating, but that it is wrong. The Nazis who exterminated Jews ma...
Over and over and over again God says, I will choose Nazareth, not Jerusalem. I will choose the girl nobody wants. I will choose the boy everybody has forgotten. Why? Is it just that God likes underdo...
One of the signs that an object is functioning as an idol is that fear becomes one of the chief characteristics of life. When we center our lives on the idol, we become dependent on it. If our counter...
Once we have drawn out the instruction—put the teaching of the text in a nutshell—then we ask how this teaching particularly leads us to praise and thank God, how it leads us to repent and confess sin...
No one is so good that they don’t need the grace of the gospel, nor so bad that they can’t receive the grace of the gospel.
Moralistic behavior change simply manipulates and leverages radical selfishness without challenging it. It tries to use that selfishness against itself by appealing to fear and pride. But while this m...
Many interpreters try to list prayer as one of the items in the armor, along with truth, righteousness, peace, faith, salvation, and the Word of God. That won’t work, however, because every other item...
Lord, Long my imprisoned spirit lay fast bound in sin and nature’s night; Thine eye diffused a quickening ray—I woke, the dungeon flamed with light; My chains fell off, my heart was free, I rose, went...
Jonathan Edwards wrote a sermon with the following outline:342 Our bad things will turn out for good (Rom 8:28), Our good things can never be taken away from us (Ps 4:6–7), and The best things are yet...
Jesús está diciendo que tanto los irreligiosos como los religiosos están perdidos espiritualmente, ambos estilos de vida llevan a callejones sin salida y que todas las ideas que la humanidad ha tenido...
Jesus’s miracles are not just a challenge to our minds, but a promise to our hearts, that the world we all want is coming.
January 9 READ Psalm 7:1–5. 1 LORD my God, I take refuge in you; save and deliver me from all who pursue me, 2 or they will tear me apart like a lion and rip me to pieces with no one to rescue me. 3 L...
It is rearranging the raw material of God’s creation in such a way that it helps the world in general, and people in particular, thrive and flourish.
Individuals are now spiritual consumers who will go to a church only if (and as long as) its worship and public speaking are immediately riveting and attractive. Therefore, ministers who can create po...
In the end faith always moves beyond mental assent and duty and will involve the whole self—mind, will, and emotions. Why
In the Old Testament book of 2 Kings, we read the story of Naaman, a wealthy and powerful general of the Syrian army.149 He was suffering terribly, dying slowly of leprosy. Hearing of a powerful God i...
In literature, plays, and cinema, substitutionary sacrifice is always the most riveting and moving plot point. In the movie The Last of the Mohicans, British major Duncan Heyward asks his Indian capto...
If human rights and equality exist just because we say so, then activists are not able to persuade, only to coerce. They can force cultures to adopt Western, individualistic ideas of rights and equali...
Idolatries of the heart lead to foolishness in the life.
God's reckless grace is our greatest hope, a life changing experience.