For the second time in the past year I am turning to J.I. Packer’s small but powerful book Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God. Having read several books on the doctrines of grace, I wanted to make firm in my mind how human responsibility and divine sovereignty interact in the process of evangelism and conversion.…
We set high expectations for our pastors. We expect that every Sunday we will sit under their teaching and learn sacred truths from their mouths. We expect that they have spent their week investigating Scripture and digging deeply into God’s Word so that they can teach us something that will change our lives. We expect…
In past weeks I have been challenged by several fellow believers on my statements concerning some of the people I have written about on this site. In particular, people have questioned my views on Rick Warren and John Eldredge. Because of their impact on the evangelical church, I have written about each of these men…
English-speaking Reformed believers have long been taught the acronym TULIP as a memorization aid to the doctrines of grace. In classic Calvinist terminology, the letters stand for: T – Total DepravityU – Unconditional ElectionL – Limited AtonementI – Irresistable GraceP – Perseverance of the Saints Recently many authors and theologians have realized the shortcomings with…
Every believer has at least a passing familiarity with Romans 8:28 which reads “We know that in everything God works for good with those who love him, who are called according to his purpose.” If you’re like me, you probably have lost track of the number of sermons you have heard and books you have…
Every week Rick Warren sends out his Ministry Toolbox and it seems he always gives me something to think about. As the man at the leading edge of evangelicalism these days I always pay attention to what he says, for I know it will be only a matter of weeks before many churches follow his…
There have been a couple of occasions on this site where I have written about the evangelical church’s apparent belief that unbelievers are really quite dumb. After all, we treat them as if they are unable to pay attention to anything for more than a few minutes, as if they are unable to enjoy any…
For someone who lives this far north, I have a surprising number of friends and acquaintances who are NASCAR fans. I can’t count the number of times I have heard them defend it as a sport, and not just some sort of car rally. Like most types of sport or entertainment, NASCAR has many who…
Vincere scis, Hannibal; victoria uti nescis In my literary travellings this weekend (you can interpret that phrase to mean “reading” – I just mean to indicate I stumbled across this phrase, not that I was spending a lot of time reading ancient history) I read an interesting phrase which immediately caught my attention. It was…
If I were to use the average church outreach program as a guide, I would have to assume that the average non-Christian is lazy, stupid, ignorant, unwilling to learn and suffering from attention deficit disorder. He has two kids that he loves but never spends any time with, leaving him racked with guilt. He is…
Revelation, inspiration and illumination are three critical concepts for Christians to understand. While most believers are at least vaguely familiar with the concepts surrounding revelation and inspiration, it seems far fewer understand illumination. We will seek to remedy that today. It is important that we keep these concepts apart in our minds. We must not…
I tend to rush. Even when I’m kicking back on the couch to read a book, I find myself rushing through the pages. It’s not that I do not enjoy reading – it just seems that I am always in a hurry to do the thing that will come immediately after what I’m doing right…
Proponents of church growth would have us believe that health and growth are always inexorably connected. They contend that a healthy church must necessarily grow and that an unhealthy church will generally not grow. Rick Warren, in The Purpose Driven Life, tells us that his book is not a church growth manual, but a church…
I am quite often asked why I would care to devote so much time and effort to the defense of a Reformed view of Christianity. A few days ago, for example, I received an email asking if it really matters what we believe on the issue of open theism. After all, either way we are…
I believe our churches need to be seeker sensitive. There, I said it! And not just a little bit seeker sensitive either. I believe they should be wholly, entirely given over to the idea of seeker sensitivity, for this is the highest calling of a church. Hear me out. Seeker sensitivity in our day seems…
If you read this site on a regular basis, you’ll know I have been doing some research on the topic of what happens to children who die before they can hear or accept the gospel. I first wrote about this here. This is an issue almost every Christian faces at some point during his pilgrimage…
In the past few days I have noticed a surge of interest in the 40 Days of Community program, the follow-up to the 40 Days of Purpose program some 20,000 churches have already participated in. The initial launch of 40 Days of Community is the Fall of this year, which would explain the increased interest…
After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, which is called in Hebrew, Bethesda, having five porches. In these lay a great multitude of sick people, blind, lame, paralyzed, waiting for the moving of the water. For…
For reasons I cannot quite ascertain (though I am hoping they are not prophetic), I have been thinking a lot lately about the issue of whether children who die in infancy are automatically ushered into heaven. In other words, what happens to children when they die? I have heard various answers to this question, and…
As Christians we believe that the Bible is the word of God. We believe it is, as it says of itself, “living and breathing, sharper than a two-edged sword.” We believe that the Bible is the greatest revelation of God – despite the incredible beauty of nature, it pales in comparison to what we find…