7
May
2021
Legitimate Care and Concern vs. Anxiety and Worry
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Dr. Doran recently preached a series of sermons addressing a significant problem in our day: anxiety. This was a timely series and the sermons are filled with biblical and practical guidance for fighting against the sin of worry. You can listen to the sermons here: The Roots of Anxiety from Matthew 6:24–34 The Right Response... Read More
29
Mar
2021
The Wisdom Pyramid: A Review
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Brett McCracken has written a helpful, short book on managing our information-overload world. He rightly notes that though we live in a world of exponentially increasing knowledge, such knowledge has not done much to make us wise. The book breaks into two unequal parts. They are unequal both in terms of length as well as... Read More
24
Mar
2021
When Your Authority Becomes Your Enemy
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Post-Christian society is full of deniers—Christians unwilling to cede the loss of Christian influence and often unaware that this loss has irreparably occurred in American culture. These deniers are still agitating to restore Christian privilege: getting the Bible and prayer back into public schools, getting the Ten Commandments back into courthouses, getting a real Christian... Read More
19
Mar
2021
Wisdom from Spurgeon: On Re-qualification for Ministry
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This semester Dr. John Aloisi and I are co-teaching a class called “Great Books.” We are working our way through various books that have had a significant impact for one reason or another. Recently we read a healthy portion of Spurgeon’s Lectures to My Students. If you have not read these lectures, you are doing... Read More
15
Mar
2021
Does It Matter If Government Restrictions on Churches Are Reasonable and Temporary?
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Over the past year, Christian leaders have been forced to think through the nature of governmental authority as it relates to the church. One consistent refrain has been that churches must comply with much if not all of the current government restrictions, because these restrictions are reasonable and temporary. But does it matter if restrictions... Read More
8
Mar
2021
Yet Another Question of Discernment: Binary Assessments
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As a professor and occasional interim pastor, I routinely hear a question (or something like it): “Is __________ (fill in the blank with any popular author, radio/TV preacher, apologist, musician) a good guy or a bad guy?” Often the question is asked in passing with the assumption that I can flash a simple thumbs up/thumbs... Read More
24
Feb
2021
What Counts as Religious Persecution?
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You may have heard about the pastor in Alberta, James Coates, who has been arrested recently in connection with his church’s gathering as a whole for worship (without masks or distancing), which violates the current government restrictions. You can see some details (and slightly different perspectives) here and here. My goal here is not to... Read More
12
Feb
2021
15 Signs You Are in a Loving Marriage
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A while back I saw Oprah magazine had a list of 16 signs you may be in a loveless marriage (with the obvious assumption that love is something a person can fall in to or out of). Since this is a time in which many people are thinking about loving relationships, I’d like to offer... Read More
1
Feb
2021
What Shall We Think of Special Providence?
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A few weeks ago Doug Wilson outlined a solution to the “problem of prayer” in the face of divine sovereignty by championing the idea of special providence. Wilson is not, of course, the first to express this idea, but he does so uniquely and well, and is deserving of a response. Simply explained, since God is absolutely sovereign, he... Read More
27
Jan
2021
The Offense of Grace
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No one hates grace, do they? Who would ever be offended by a free gift? After calling a tax collector to follow Him, Jesus invited tax collectors and sinners to eat a meal with him (Mark 2:15–17). Jesus was showing grace to the outcasts. Tax collectors and sinners were well-known for their evil. Many tax... Read More