In recent years, our society has rapidly embraced what has come to be known as the "cancel culture." If someone has said or done something--at any point in his or her life--that cuts across the grain of the suppose moral rectitude of society, he or she is swiftly excoriated to the point of irremediable social ostracization. An immediate sentence is determined by the masses and pronounced on social media in order to ensure its execution. There is no mercy, no call to repentance, and no hope of restoration...The rashness and widespread nature of the execution is, in part, the thing that makes cancel culture so brutal. The bitter and self-righteous speech of those pronouncing judgment gives the unremitting banter a veneer of justice. This is what makes cancel culture such a powerful weapon; yet, I suggest, a weapon to be avoided by Christians. ...
Paul teaches that Jesus Christ is the source of all godliness. There is no godliness apart from Him. His Person and saving work is the singular and exclusive source of that godliness that God requires and provides. Our God gives what He requires of Himself by coming in the Person of Christ. ...
May we not fall into ritualistic, Christless, and imbalanced approaches to the means of grace in our churches. How we minister the means of grace in the context of public worship is more important than simply professing to be “an ordinary means of grace church.” May the ordinary means of grace be more than a Shibboleth to us....
There is a clear pattern in Scripture of the way in which God uses the praises of His people for their future deliverances and the evangelization of the nations. May we enter into His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise, knowing that our God is enthroned on the praises of His people. We need His deliverance and the watching nations need His salvation....
By restraining wrong opinions about His person and work...
In recent years, our society has rapidly embraced what has come to be known as the "cancel culture." If someone has said or done something--at any point in his or her life--that cuts across the grain of the suppose moral rectitude of society, he or she is swiftly excoriated to the point of irremediable social ostracization. An immediate sentence is determined by the masses...
Keep ReadingPaul teaches that Jesus Christ is the source of all godliness. There is no godliness apart from Him. His Person and saving work is the singular and exclusive source of that godliness that God requires and provides. Our God gives what He requires of Himself by coming in the Person of Christ. ...
Keep ReadingWe live in a world of rare commodities. Men and women spend the better part of their lives seeking after valuable artifacts. Every summer, we would take our boys to ruby mining attractions in the Blue Ridge Mountains. When our youngest son was five or six, he was obsessed with gems. Over the years, Judah amassed a collection of gems that he had either discovered on his own...
Keep ReadingLately, as I have been reading through Augustine's Expositions of the Psalms, I have been struck afresh by how central God's free, unmerited, saving grace in Christ is throughout his theology. Though he is not always clear about justification being a legal act on the part of God, Augustine, nevertheless, makes numerous statements about the acceptance of a sinner before t...
Keep ReadingPeter the Barber is one of the most interesting figures in church history. He was not like so many othersof whom we have accounts in the annals of church historya theological giant. He did not start any charitable organization or initiate a movement to liberate an oppressed people. He was Martin Luther's barber (and, apparently was quit committed to the bowl cut!). In 1535...
Keep ReadingIt has become all too common for men and women to attack the church for all of the ways in which they believe that the church has failed. Almost every day professing believers rant online about the failures of "the evangelical church," "the Reformed church," "the Western church," etc. While recognizing that all of these categories are somewhat artificially manufactured, th...
Keep ReadingI have always been astonished by the magnitude of Jesus' last miracle prior to His atoning death on the cross. As His attackers came to take Him by force, Simon Peter stood ready to defend His Master. With sword drawn, he struck the ear of Malcus, the servant of the High Priest. F.W. Krummacher notes the sense in which most professing believers would respond had they bee...
Keep ReadingMay we not fall into ritualistic, Christless, and imbalanced approaches to the means of grace in our churches. How we minister the means of grace in the context of public worship is more important than simply professing to be “an ordinary means of grace church.” May the ordinary means of grace be more than a Shibboleth to us....
Keep ReadingIf we have discovered anything about Christians during this pandemic, it is that so many are ready to divide with other believers on the basis of their opinions over face coverings. The better part of ministers I have spoken with are exhaustednot simply from trying to lead a congregation through the challenges and logistics of when and how to gather for worship, but from d...
Keep ReadingA number of years ago, the church I planted decided to include a section for "prayer requests" on a visitor card that we handed to first-time visitors. Needless to say, after numerous visitors took a cue from the world of celebrity award shows and wrote "pray for world peace," we decided to discontinue that section of the card. It was obviously not because we did not des...
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