Category: CHRISTIAN LIFE
The Demon Behind the Idol
The Christians in 1st Century Corinth were in pretty bad shape. In the Bible, Paul’s first letter to them (which was actually the second letter he had written to them) reveals that they were separating into factions, suing each other in public courtrooms, tolerating serious sexual...
How To Spot A Fool
They’re everywhere. Foolish people dominate the airwaves and are present in our homes, schools, churches, and workplaces. They can even be right inside our own clothes. Everyone has chosen a foolish path at times. And sadly, some have taken up permanent residence in that destructive...
The Text of The Bible Is The Foundation of Your Faith
I once heard a woman who professed to be a Christian declare, in the context of a disagreement about what the Bible says about God and his ways, “I don’t care what the Bible says. It has nothing to do with my faith.” Her view on...
How Much Suffering Can You Take?
Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.” (Hebrews 12:3-4) You have suffered — some — if you...
The Priority and Potency of Prayer
My wife and I recently realized we’ve become quite the “strategists” with our children. This is unfortunate. When our children share dilemmas for our consideration, we are too quick to offer (oftentimes) dogmatic counsel without asking clarifying questions and, more shamefully, without praying. You would think...
The Elements of Victory
Christians are people who have been saved by the grace of God through the sacrificial, substitutionary death of Jesus Christ. Not a single person will attain to eternal life as a reward for his own moral perfection, but only through the grace of God in Christ...
How to Avoid Being a Theological Ignoramus
J.I. Packer tells a personal story about his freshman year in college (see Bruce Milne, Know the Truth, IVP, 1998, p. 9). The chaplain at his school took some of the students on “pastoral walks.” Packer was on one of those strolls and said of the...
Loving What is Beautiful
We were made for beauty. Our concept of beauty will vary, distorted by what theologians call “the Fall.” That is a way of speaking of the evil present within us permeating all aspects of our person. This causes one woman to long for an illicit affair...
Shelved or Serving in the Latter Years?
Can you do much for God and his kingdom when you get old? God thinks so. He has used many older people to accomplish valuable kingdom work, recorded colorfully in both the Bible and Christian history. Take Moses. He was 40 when he killed an Egyptian...
Eat This, Not That: Feasting on the Scriptures Privately for Effective Ministry Publicly
We live life in two basic realms — private and public. Who we are in one sphere influences the other. This idea comes out in Paul’s words to Timothy, “If you put these things before the brothers, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus,...
