J. I. Packer: Don’t Like the Term Biblical “Inerrancy”? Fine. But What about...
An excerpt from J. I. Packer, God Has Spoken: Revelation and the Bible (Wheaton: Crossway, 2021), 126–31. [W]ords, being tools of thought and tokens of meaning, are neither magical nor impregnable, and...
View ArticleThis Doctor Performed 1,200 Abortions. Until Something Changed Him Forever.
Warning. The following video is very difficult to listen to. It is Congressional testimony from obstetrician/gynecologist Anthony Levatino, who performed 1,200 abortions in his career. He tells exactly...
View ArticleJ. I. Packer on “Impressions”
J. I. Packer’s essay, “Guidance: How God Loves Us,” in God’s Plans for Us (Wheaton: Crossway, 2001), 89–106, is a really important read. Halfway through, Packer covers what he has argued thus far: I...
View ArticleThe Preaching Class with John Piper: 30 Videos of Lectures and Workshop
John Piper—co-founder of Desiring God, former preaching pastor at Bethlehem Baptist Church, and author of The Supremacy of God in Preaching and Expository Exultation: Christian Preaching as Worship—has...
View ArticleA Gospel Moment on YouTube: Ligon Duncan’s “Take and Eat”
Ligon Duncan—the Chancellor/CEO of Reformed Theological Seminary and the John E. Richards Professor of Systematic and Historical Theology—delivered the memorable clip above at the 2018 Together for...
View ArticleA Gospel Moment on YouTube: Alistair Begg on the Thief on the Cross
Alistair Begg, the senior pastor of Cleveland’s Parkside Church, delivered the clip above in a sermon: You know, I always think about this in relationship to the thief on the cross when he arrives at...
View ArticleYou Can’t Improve on This Definition of “Worldliness”
What is worldliness? that system of values, in any given age, which has at its center our fallen human perspective, which displaces God and his truth from the world, and which makes sin look normal and...
View ArticleA Gospel Moment on YouTube: D. A. Carson on the Two Jews Talking the Day...
D. A. Carson, “How Long, O Lord? Steadying Our Soul in the Midst of the Storm,” Bethlehem 2016 Conference for Pastors and Church Leaders (Minneapolis), January 26, 2016: Picture two Jews, by the name...
View ArticleA New Movie on the Conversion of C. S. Lewis
On November 3, 2021, for one night only, cinemas nationwide will carry the new movie, “The Most Reluctant Convert: The Untold Story of C. S. Lewis.” You can look for the availability of the film and...
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A Gospel Moment on YouTube: Matt Chandler’s “Jesus Wants the Rose!”
In 2009, Matt Chandler gave a powerful illustration about purity and the gospel of grace and forgiveness.
View ArticleAugustine Actually (and Clearly) Affirmed Sola Scriptura
Historical theologian and Protestant pastor Gavin Ortlund (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary; author of books including Theological Retrieval for Evangelicals: Why We Need Our Past to Have a Future and...
View ArticleDid the Early Church Oppose Abortion?
If you’ve ever wanted to know what the early church thought about abortion and how it responded, the book to read is Michael J. Gorman’s Abortion and the Early Church: Christian, Jewish and Pagan...
View ArticleDriscoll, Schaeffer, and Packer on the Size of Your Church and the Idolatry...
Mark Driscoll, from a sermon in 2006, eight years before he abandoned the church discipline process from his elders, resigned the church after ostensibly hearing from God, and eventually saw Mars Hill...
View ArticleWhy She Wants to Meet the Man Who Killed Her Father
On December 3, 2021, 37-year-old Jaime Jaramillo and an alleged girlfriend were confronted by Mr. Jaramillo’s wife in a grocery store parking lot in Mesquite, Texas. A domestic disturbance ensured,...
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The Reinvention (and Recovery) of the Quiet Time
As you think about your spiritual habits of grace for the new year, I would commend to you Jonathan Gibson’s new book, Be Thou My Vision: A Liturgy for Daily Worship. (You can get it at Crossway, WTS...
View ArticleTim Keller on the Church Crisis That He Never Had to Face as a Pastor—But You Do
Sophia Lee of World Magazine: A lot of pastors are struggling, particularly after the various shifts during the pandemic. People are leaving churches over pandemic restrictions, the election, racial...
View ArticleHow the American Evangelical Race Discussion Went Off the Rails—And How to...
I found this article by Jonathan Leeman to be very helpful, particularly the section on the topic of evangelical churches and the race discussion. Here is his big idea: Pastors should strive to teach...
View ArticleThe Spectrum of Early Beliefs about How Christians Should Relate to the Law...
The following chart is adapted from a chart in the ESV Study Bible, which was itself adapted from a section by D. A. Carson in the book Love in Hard Places. I found it to be very helpful to see the...
View ArticleJesus Was Not Pharisaical to the Pharisees
Tim Keller, commenting on Jesus’s parable of the lost sons, when the father entreats the older brother: [Jesus] is addressing the religious leaders who are going to hand him over to the Roman...
View ArticleAn Earnest Plea to Slow the Evangelical Twitter Wars and to Drop the Tribal...
Erick Erickson with a word: We’re seeing a realignment within evangelicalism right now with some, derisively called “Big Eva” spending way, way, way too much time lecturing evangelicals on their...
View ArticleHave You Ever Considered How Statistically Unlikely It Is that Jesus Changed...
In his very thought-provoking book, Person of Interest, J. Warner Wallace asks a very good question: “Why, then, did Jesus have more impact than anyone else?” Jesus was born in a tiny, irrelevant town...
View ArticleAugustine vs. Aquinas
Peter Kreeft: As the essential comparison in ancient philosophy is between Plato and Aristotle, the essential comparison in medieval philosophy is between Augustine and Aquinas. It is not so much a...
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A Ukrainian Pastor’s One-Word Answer on What He Is Learning in These Days of War
An on-the-ground update from Pastor Sergey Nakul of Grace Reformed Church in Kyiv.
View ArticleThe Disciples Didn’t Bail on Jesus Because of Judas
Matt Chandler with a word: I wanna acknowledge church-hurt betrayal is a real thing, but that is the most self-righteous pronouncement [for leaving Jesus] I think a person can say. Are you serious?...
View ArticleAn Interview with Paul on What’s Wrong with Us
Interacting with the Apostle Paul through Romans 1: What do all of us know? We know God himself. We know God’s decree. We know God’s judgment—that those who practice sinful things deserve death. What...
View ArticleWhat Is Christianity? What Is a Christian?
Christianity is both a doctrine and a life, and . . . [T]he object of true faith is both a proposition and a person. . . . Christianity, objectively considered, is the testimony of God concerning his...
View ArticleHow Are We Doing on This, Evangelicals?
Which are you more likely to hear an evangelical talk about on social media these days—the culture wars (or critiques of fellow Christians culture-warring) or the glorious privilege of communion and...
View ArticleWhat Mother Teresa Told the Supreme Court: “Your Decision in Roe v. Wade Has...
In 1994, Mother Teresa submitted an amicus curiae brief to the U.S. Supreme Court about abortion in America. (For context, the United States is one of the few countries in the world that allows...
View Article10 Affirmations and Denials on Ethnic Harmony, Justice, and the Church
The following statement was released in 2021 by Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis. As far as I can tell, it didn’t get much attention. But is worth careful reading and study as the church at...
View Article10 Affirmations and Denials on Men and Women in the Created Order, Marriage,...
This statement out of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Manhood & Womanhood Affirmations and Denials (2001), is worthy of careful study and consideration: Preamble We live in an age with much confusion...
View ArticleYou Want to Be Addicted to Distraction
Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) once wrote: I have often said that the sole cause of man’s unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room. Peter Kreeft, Christianity for Modern Pagans,...
View ArticleChristological and Trinitarian Principles and Rules for Exegesis
Biblical Reasoning: Christological and Trinitarian Rules for Exegesis (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2022), by R. B. Jamieson and Tyler R. Wittman, is garnering significant praise. Fred Sanders calls...
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Listen to Zambian Pastor Conrad Mbewe Narrate the ESV
Zambian pastor and author Conrad Mbewe is one of the new voices coming to ESV.org and the ESV Bible app in 2023. You can listen below as he reads Psalm 67: Current Voices Kristyn Getty David Cochran...
View ArticleA Simple Way to Help One Million Christians in the Global South Get a Copy of...
An exciting opportunity from Crossway: The Treasure Could you imagine what life would be like without your Bible? How would your faith be different? What impact would the lack of a Bible have on your...
View ArticleThree Harms that Come from Redefining Marriage
In their book What Is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense, Sherif Gergis, Ryan T. Anderson, and Robert P. George defend the historic understanding of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife....
View ArticleDo Humans Have Free Will? The Answer (Of Course) Is: It Depends!
If someone asks if we have free will, you should ask at least two questions first: Who do you mean by “we”? What do you mean by “free will”? Those aren’t just academic questions. Without clarifying...
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The Problems with Neo-Darwinism
Do you believe in evolution? The proper Christian answer to that question depends on the meaning of the term. In their 2003 essay “The Meanings of Evolution,” Stephen C. Meyer and Michael Newton Keas...
View ArticleWhat Is the Bible to a Pastor?
Thomas Murphy, pastor of the Frankford Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia from 1849 to 1895, wrote in his classic on Pastoral Theology: The Pastor in the Various Duties of His Office (Philadelphia:...
View ArticleDid Jesus Rise From the Dead? Three Historical Facts (+ Four Explanations...
Why did Jesus die? Because he was making outrageous claims about his identity. Why would anyone take these claims seriously? Because this followers claim that he rose from the dead? If he did, that...
View ArticleWhat Is a Man? What Is a Woman? How Our Laws Should Define Male and Female
The science behind sex determination in placental mammals (mammals, including humans, that have a placenta) is clear: In placental mammals, the presence of a Y chromosome determines sex. Normally,...
View ArticleGeorge Verwer (1938–2023)
On Friday, April 14, 2023, mission mobilizer George Verwer, age 84, went to be with his Lord and Savior after a two-month battle with Sarcoma cancer. He is survived by his wife, Drena, and their three...
View ArticleThe Church as a Theo-Political Order
Edmund Clowney: The church as the community of Christ’s kingdom on earth is a theo-political order. While all things are under the rule of Christ, it is his saving rule that constitutes his kingdom...
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A Simple Way to Help Get 100,000 Bibles to Kids in Africa
Crossway had entered into phase 2 of its million-Bible giveaway to under-resourced people in the majority world.
View ArticleHow the Poet John Milton Responded When He Went Blind in His Forties
By the early 1650s—in his early 40s—the great English poet John Milton (1608–1674) was blind in both eyes, probably experiencing bilateral retinal detachments. It was during this time that he dictated...
View ArticleWho Is Jesus Christ?
In his exegetically rich and historically conversant theological dogmatics on Christology, Daniel Treier unfolds the progressive revelation of Scripture’s claims about who Christ is, summarized as...
View ArticleA Harmony of the Birth of Jesus: Matthew and Luke
Here is a simple chronology to show how the events of Matthew 1–2 and Luke 1–2 fit together and what each of the gospel authors emphasize. Matthew tells things more through the eyes of Joseph and Luke...
View ArticleWhen the Walk Becomes a Crawl: One of the Most Hopeful Reminders I’ve Read...
I miss the late David Powlison (1949–2019). I was recently reminded of the section below adapted from his 2017 book, Making All Things New: Restoring Joy to the Sexually Broken. It has stayed with me...
View ArticleA Remarkable Achievement: The New “Ask Pastor John” Book
The Ask Pastor John Podcast is a quiet phenomenon, now over ten years old. In that first decade (2013–2022), host Tony Reinke produced 1,881 episodes with John Piper. At around 10 minutes per episode,...
View ArticleJesus Reigned as Lord from the Tree
The early church father, Tertullian, writing in the early third century, asks: Which king ever displayed the sign of his dominion upon his shoulder, and not in a crown upon his head or a scepter in his...
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