A Site for the Teaching Ministry of Nick Batzig
Human experience is inexorably tied to desire. To stop desiring at any given moment of one's conscious life is an absolute impossibility. Our desires may change according to age, stage of life, and circumstances. However, it would be an ontological possibility for someone to cease desiring for even a single second of his or her conscious life. Gaining a proper understanding of desire is vital if men are going to come to Christ and if believers are going to glean maximum spiritual benefit from Christ in our Christian lives....
Christians today, no less than in Machen's day, desperately need to come to terms with the fact that we are all theologians--whether good ones or bad ones. While we must be zealous to guard our hearts against embracing the ethos of the vitriolic doctrinal voices around us, we must equally avoid giving ear to those who, under pretense of love and charity, have functionally encouraged "a horror of theology."...
Jesus is the full manifestation of the glory of God. As the apostle John explained, "And the Word became flesh and dwelt (i.e., tabernacled) among us and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father full of grace and truth (John 1:14–15). In Christ, God was manifest in the flesh (1 Tim. 3:16). There is nowhere that the eternal Son of God dwelt so fully among men as He did when he became incarnate in Jesus. In Jesus, we see the glory of God in the flesh....
While God "richly provides us with everything to enjoy" (1 Tim. 6:17), there is yet a greater manifestation of His goodness–namely, the giving of His Son. God the Father gave up His infinitely beloved Son to redeem sinners. In addition to giving up His Son, God has promised to give believers ever other good thing for which they hope for all of eternity. Scripture encourges believers to measure the goodness of God in the giving up of His Son to assure them of the certainty of every lesser gift God has promised them....
Time is short. We only have so many years, months, days, and hours in which to be productive. This is reason enough for us to work as unto the Lord during the short time God has given us in this life. The books of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes speak repeatedly about our need to pursue productive and fruitful lives. The author of Ecclesiastes explains why productivity is fundamental to what we do when he says, “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might, for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going” (Eccl. 9:10)....
Pride is one of the greatest snares to the souls of men and is the snare of measuring ourselves by ourselves and comparing ourselves among ourselves (2 Cor. 10:12). When we allow pride to fester and take root in our hearts, we begin to think, act and speak as if we have, because of our supposed virtues, are spiritually superior to others. As we do so, we make that in which he believe we excel our standard of holiness, rather than God’s Law with its unattainable depths and requirements. Additionally, when we foster spiritual pride we reveal that we do not truly need the atoning sacrifice of Christ for our sin....
If we would remember the sphere of our callings from God, our need to mine out of Scripture the wisdom of God, and our sinfulness before God, we will be much more reticent to insert ourselves into controversies about which we do not need to involve ourselves. As we keep these three guiding principles before us, we will be more equipped to determine what controversies we should take up and those from which we should keep ourselves....
Whatever symbolism men may wish to impose on the covenantal sign that God set in the cloud, we must return again and again to the truth of Scripture and to the God who has aimed the arrows of His wrath at Himself so that we might not receive them for all eternity....
Many tend to think of sanctification as something entirely progressive, and, therefore, miss out on understanding one of the richest and most spiritually impacting gospel truths. In order for us to understand why both definitive and positional sanctification are two aspects of the doctrine of sanctification most frequently overlooked, it will help us to consider what they are, why they have frequently been overlooked, and how it ought to impact our Christian lives. ...
In his book The Bruised Reed, Richard Sibbes famously wrote, "We have this for a foundation truth, that there is more mercy in Christ than sin in us." Here is one of those oft repeated statements of Gospel assurance with which believers love to comfort one another. ...
While things like gender debates rage on in the make believe world of Western social media (with Christians being excoriated for their views on male headship in the home and church), the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan reminds us that there is an Islamic patriarchy that makes "dishwashing" debates look like something akin to kindergarteners yelling at each other on the pla...
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Personal pronouns have been all the rage and debate in recent years. It's amazing how important such short words are in our everyday speech and in our anthropology. That being said, personal pronouns are also some of the most important words to interpret when reading the Scriptures. . .Person pronouns guide the interpretation of a passage, they inform us of the individual ...
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We love the idea of diversity, until it cuts across our own idea of personal uniformity. I have been thinking often of the diversity of personalities represented in the church, and how that diversity plays into the heated conversations that we have online. We often fail to adequately understand why someone might be more vocal that we wish them to be, or more quiet than we ...
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When we consider all the depths and riches of the details and redemptive-historical background of Jesus' first miraculous sign, we are encouraged to believe in Him for spiritual renewal and joy. As the greater Moses, the Seed of the woman, and the Bridegroom of His Church, Jesus came to bring the life-giving blessings of redemption. He came to make all things new. May we k...
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No matter how long men lived after the fall, the curse of the fall echoed in the words, “…and he died.” Man cannot outlive death, no matter how long his life may have been. The futility of life and the inevitability of death served to produce in that primitive era a greater taste of the bitterness of the fall, the longing for the promised Redeemer, and the hope of th...
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When Christians publicly confess the truths that the church has always confessed, God is distinguishing between the church and the world...
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Pastors must learn to strike the balance between pastoring people through the daily needs of their lives and courageously tackling false teaching that threatens the purity of the gospel and the church. Ministers should consider themselves to be, first and foremost, shepherds of the flock of the Lord Jesus which God has entrusted to their care. If they must engage in public...
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In all that happened to him, Daniel was serving the purposes of God in redemptive history. He was standing as a typical last Adam, gaining representative dominion over the threatening powers of darkness and subduing even the ravenous bests. In the destruction of Daniel's persecuting enemies, God was foreshadowing the judgment that He will pour out on the wicked in the last...
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Excoriating pastors for being abusive seems to have become par for the course these days. Much of this is in reaction to a failure on the part of churches to hold their leaders accountable. Usually, charges of abuse come in the context of a pastor who has supposedly bullied his elders, staff, or members of the church. Sometimes it is in relation to a pastor who is charged ...
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