Some time ago I promised an article on the subject of conditional versus unconditional forgiveness. I’ve had many false starts and have been largely unsatisfied with anything I’ve written on the subject. So I decided to simplify and to provide only an outline of my thoughts on the subject. I am, perhaps, a little less…
Do you remember learning to do long division back when you were in grade school? It was probably fourth or fifth grade when we learned to do it. It was a long and laborious process and one that, even in my day, seemed irrelevant. After all, we all had calculators and we knew that they…
Some time ago a reader of this site, a new Calvinist, wrote to ask, “If a person is ‘a child of wrath’ from birth due to Adam’s sin and unable to choose God because of Adam’s sin, how is he responsible for his actions if he was born this way (and has no ability of…
I love language and the English language in particular. While I have always enjoyed using words and studying language, I found that my love of English was forged during the time I spent studying other languages, primarily those from which English is derived—Latin, Greek, and to some extent, French. I also studied linguistics and, of…
Last Saturday I shared a prayer for the Lord’s Day Eve. Like that one, today’s prayer is also drawn from that collection of Puritan prayers The Valley of Vision. This prayer is meant for the Lord’s Day and is a perfect way to begin Sunday looking to the Lord of that day. O Lord, My…
Thus says the Lord of hosts: “Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you, filling you with vain hopes. They speak visions of their own minds, not from the mouth of the Lord. They say continually to those who despise the word of the Lord, ‘It shall be well with…
In the tradition I grew up in, Saturday was considered a prelude to Sunday. It was a day of preparation for the Lord’s Day to come. I recently read a biography of theologian John Murray and enjoyed reading about how he understood the day in the same way (which makes good sense since he was…
It is easy to grow discouraged at the state of the church. As a person who invests quite a lot of time and attention to studying the church, her health and what Jesus requires of her, I often find myself lamenting her state. Writers from all backgrounds and denominations have written about the church, and…
Today marks the end of The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment blog tour. This was meant to be only a two week tour, but events conspired to keep me from visiting SharperIron on the scheduled date. We decided we would add one date to the tour so I could make that stop. The guys at SharperIron…
I have no memory of reading (or having read to me) C.S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia (though I’ve been assured that my parents did read them to me at least once). On the other hand, I remember reading Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit many times. I read Tolkien for the…
Today is the second to last day of the blog tour for my new book The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment. For the past two weeks I’ve been answering questions that have been asked by a variety of bloggers. Though something neither I nor Crossway had tried before, this blog tour has been fun, I think,…
We are nearing the end of The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment blog tour and today the tour takes me to Michael Spencer’s blog. I appreciated these words from Michael: “Those of you looking for an argument can move along. I’m sure Tim and I disagree on many things, but scripture tells us that it’s a…
Today brings us to the eighth day of The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment blog tour. For those who were concerned about the fact that we missed the planned stop at SharperIron, you’ll notice in the schedule below that we’ve added one more date to the tour and we’ll finish up at SharperIron on Monday. Today…
The blog tour for The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment marches on and today makes a stop at Between Two Worlds, the blog of Justin Taylor. Chances are that if you read my blog, you also read Justin’s or are, at the very least, familiar with it. Justin’s site is an indispensable source for news and…
This is the third and final article in this short series dealing with inerrancy and with the Bible’s supposed errors and contradictions. In the last article we defined what inerrancy is not and then attempted to adequately define the term. I suggested the following definition: The inerrancy of Scripture means that Scripture in the original…
The blog tour for The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment continues today with a visit to Jollyblogger. If my memory serves me well (never something I can take for granted), Jollyblogger is one of the first blogs I began to read on a regular basis. David Wayne, a pastor in Maryland, doesn’t blog quite often enough,…
King for a Week is an honor I bestow on blogs that I feel are making a valuable contribution to my faith and the faith of other believers…or sometimes just because I really like them. It is a way of introducing my readers to blogs that they may also find interesting and edifying. Every now…
Yesterday I began a short series on the inerrancy of Scripture, looking at whether there are errors and contradictions in the Bible. You can read the first article and the response to it here: Are There Errors in the Bible?. When I first began to develop and understanding of this doctrine, I found that the…
A few days ago I received an email from a reader of this site who was concerned about how to answer those who claim that the Bible is a book filled with error and contradiction. Such claims are common and, sadly, are more and more being put forth even from within evangelical circles. This reader…
This morning I continue with The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment blog tour by answering a question at Gender Blog, the official blog of the Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. The question is one that is important, interesting and, I found, quite difficult to answer adequately and sensitively. Here is what they asked: It is…