The growing rate of biblical illiteracy within the Church is extremely troubling. More troubling still, however, is that this illiteracy is not for lack of reading! According to a recent Barna Group study, 96% of those identifying as born-again Christians had read the Bible in the last seven days,...

4 Things God Wants Us to Know About Sex

Jason Roach writes on what sex means for the Christian in terms of intimacy and what it points to.

Leading Well: Raising Up Younger Leaders

For women who are in positions of leadership, Kelly King writes shares four ways you can raise up godly disciples as...

Allow me to correct one of the most common misconceptions about biblical wisdom literature in general, and Proverbs in particular. People often believe Proverbs is this spiritually neutral collection of helpful insights. As if what was collected in this book were simple truisms that lay out on the...

The story of David and Bathsheba is a ballad of bloodshed; a scene in which things seem to digress from bad to worse. Each time I read the story, I find myself astounded at the selfishness and short-sightedness of King David.

Why did he stay home while the kings of other nations – and, more...

Hiddenness is complicated. If we create it for ourselves via secrecy, it provides us a false sense of safety—existing in a world where people only know what we want them to. But if it is created apart from our will through loss, loneliness, sickness, or pain, it is an uncomfortable and...

One of the more memorable experiences I have had in an art museum occurred seven years ago. My doctoral supervisor, and then colleague, invited me and one of his soon-to-graduate PhD students^[1] to the Kimbell Art Museum to view Caravaggio’s “Saint John the Baptist...

“For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve” (1...

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. – Galatians 2:20

Galatians 2:20 is the best-known and most-quoted verse in Galatians. It...

only means that whenever someone asserts a truth about a topic dealt with in the Bible, they are stating a theological proposition. I assume most reading this article, however, are seeking to be good theologians. How can we study theology in the most faithful and fruitful manner?

Here...

This might sound gimmicky, I know. But stay with me.

As a faithful pastor, you pray for your congregation. So do I. Specifically, I like to pray through a portion of our membership directory each day.

However, I have found that adding one small activity to this prayer time tends to produce good...

Pastors embrace a call to a new church with joy and excitement for all that God can and will do in this new season of ministry. Indeed, many pastors have dreams and visions for the church: exponential growth, Christ-like membership, friendships, joy for your family, and years of fruitful...

Psalm 48 is a wonderful exultation in God and ought to serve as a kind of master anthem for the community of faith. The city mentioned is a foreshadow of the church, the body of Christ made up of all sinner-saints, and just as in these precious lyrics, the hallowed renown of God is to begin and...

“Break the Teeth in Their Mouths, O God”

Russell Meek writes about the pain of abuse from loved ones and the comfort that the imprecatory psalms have brought him as his has processed these abuses. 

5 Ways Different Generations Can Grow In Christ Together

Unity is one of the primary...

Living in Exam Week

Recently I have taken on the joyfully indomitable task of regular, weekly preaching. This was not my decision, or my goal. As a young pastor with little experience, I joined the staff at a young and growing church. I was eager to wait my turn. No one predicted that the...

Genesis 12 showed us the beginning of God’s work in Abram’s life. He called him out of darkness to go to a land that he would show him later. God promised to bless him and to make him a blessing to the world. Abram believed God and went. By faith, he followed God’s call.

The next...

CS Lewis wrote The Problem of Pain, which tries to explain why God allows bad things to happen. At the time, he received a lot of criticism - not because the book was incorrect about any of its claims, but because of how easy he made those truths sound.

Years later, he wrote A Grief Observed, which...

Recently, I found myself in front of a group of Christians fielding questions about the nature of Scripture—what the Bible is and why it matters. I was struck by how many members of the crowd, though they believed and appreciated the Bible, really lacked sufficient grounding in the Holy...

C. S. Lewis wrote about how the writing of George MacDonald “baptized his imagination” for later receipt of the gospel of Jesus. The writing of Lewis himself did this for me. I consumed the Narnia stories in elementary school, the Space Trilogy in junior high, and...

Your Church Needs You To Sing

Nick Aufenkamp writes about the necessity of church members singing loudly during worship. Singing is a powerful thing and encourages you to engage your heart.

Recovering the Priority of Personal Holiness

"Private communion with God in His Word must be more important...

This week marks the official release of Thomas S. Kidd’s new book with Yale Press, Who Is an Evangelical? The History of A Movement in Crisis. I am among those who have been looking forward to the book for quite some time as I became more aware of the types of questions Kidd was asking via...

If you are not content with a Christianity characterized by minimal devotion to God, Nehemiah is your book. It is a book for those who do not want to “just get by” in the Christian life. It is for those who are not content with a numb, mechanical, affectionless Christianity, where the...

Every institution has their rhythms. Theological and educational institutions are no different. Every year there exists consistent patterns—students come and go, grades are due, tests are taken, convocation and commencement bookend predictable semesters. One rhythm rooted in the life of...

It’s nothing short of jaw-dropping. In the middle of a South American slum, there is music. In the impoverished community of Cateura, Paraguay, where families make a living by recycling trash and selling it, an old oil can or a meat tenderizer is recreated to make a concert-quality...

There are ample articles, books, and resources on expositional preaching and its biblical roots, practical and theological benefits, and its life-giving health to the church. As helpful as those resources are, they do not always prepare you for the actual experience of expository preaching. They do...

One of Christianity’s greatest idolatries today is also one of the most subtle and insidious: the idolatry of comfort. 

Widespread especially in affluent Western contexts, comfort idolatry is the product of a consumerist context that frames everything—including spiritual...