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 serious-minded biblical churches, pastors rightly value theological rigor, biblical worship, exegetical preaching, corporate prayer, the right administration of the sacraments and the exercise of church discipline. However, one thing that does not seem to get the same emphasis in such circles is affectionate pastoral ministry. I'm not referring to the quasi-liberal so...
Keep ReadingSince the practice of the Lord's Supper has regained something of a focused treatment online in recent days, I thought it might be advantageous to focus on another important aspect of the Lord's Supper--namely, how and when should we bring our children to the Table. In doctrinally serious churches, welcoming the children of believers to the Lord's Supper is one of the mos...
Keep ReadingRecently, a video of Francis Chan surfaced in which he tries to explain what he now believes about the real physical presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper. Without wishing to dissect the many erroneous arguments Chan made about the unity of the visible church throughout the first fifteen hundred years of church history and the role of preaching in the early church, I do...
Keep ReadingRecently, I preached on the devastating consequences of Jacob's polygamous and incestuous marriage to Leah and Rachel. This was not the first time the Old Testament confronts us with the sticky problem of polygamy. It first appears in the genealogical record of Cain's reprobate descendants, where we read of Lamech's polygamous marriage and subsequent boastful defense of h...
Keep ReadingTheologians have frequently appealed to the internal testimony of Scripture as a substantiating proof of its divine authorship. For instance, B.B. Warfield, in his article "'It says;' 'Scripture says;' 'God says,'" takes note of the divine authorship of Scripture from the consistent way in which the New Testament introduces its Old Testament citations. Others have pointed...
Keep Reading2019 was the most transitional year we have had as a family, as I started a new job with Ligonier Ministries and a new pastorate at Wayside PCA on Signal Mountain, TN. The Lord was gracious to us each step of the way. I was able to write far more than I thought I would. As I like to offer a writing recap at the end of each year, here is a compilation of what I was able to...
Keep Reading"When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son,bornof woman, bornunder the law" (Gal. 4:4). The Apostle Paul wrote this glorious statement in order to impress the idea that all of human history centers on the person and saving work of Christ. Time was made for Jesus Christ. "The fulness of time" also refers to the two ages--the present evil age of this fallen...
Keep ReadingIn his Systematic Theology, Robert Letham explains the interrelationship between general and special revelation, when he writes, "We need special revelation, the Word of God, to understand general revelation properly. This was true before the fall, when Adam received verbal revelation from God as to the nature of his task. It is doubly so once sin entered, the human m...
Keep ReadingBy the time I turned forty, I had lived in twenty-five different houses in seven different states. Relocating became standard fare for me during what many call “the formative years.” By way of contrast, my wife lived in the same house until she left for college. For ten years, I pastored a church in a military town that has 400 percent turnover. I suppose that my upbr...
Keep ReadingImagine all the angels gathered before the throne of God when the Savior was born. The redemption that God had planned in eternity is now being accomplished in the fulness of time. Out of that vast host of angels, the Triune God chooses one from among these messengers who exist to do His will (Ps. 103:20: Heb. 1:7). He points to one of these angels in the midst of the myr...
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