What impact would it have had on the church in our late-modern, scientific day and age if the author(s) of the Apostles’ Creed had included a statement about the reality of angelic activity and spiritual warfare in the Christian life? I envision such a statement as reading like this: “I...

I vividly remember the morning of September 11. 2001. I was living in Flat Rock, NC, just south of Asheville. I remember hustling into the Country Club where I worked as a cook, trying not to lose my job because of my prodigal lifestyle. At some point, the head chef ran out and sat the staff down....

So much about the truth of Christ in the Scriptures respects the obedience He rendered to His Father. Though He is God manifest in the flesh, Jesus lived a perfectly sinless life–as the last Adam–in order to merit righteousness for His people. Jesus kept the Ten Commandments perfectly...

One of the most important, and yet most difficult, elements of Pauline theology is the Apostle’s use of the flesh/Spirit (σὰρξ/πνεῦμα) antithesis. The antithetical construct is preeminently found in Romans and Galatians, and can really only be...

Discussions about sermon preparation tend to gravitate towards subjects involved in the formal processes of moving from the text to the sermon. There is no shortage of books, chapters, or articles in which one will find the various exegetical, theological, practical and homiletical elements of...

What is the central message of Christianity? This is a subject of timeless importance in a day when many insist that the central message is kindness in interpersonal relations; or that it is justice in its variegated societal implementation. However compelling the case may be made for either of...

John Newton once wrote a letter on rules of controversy to a fellow minister who informed him of his intention to confront another minister about that minister’s supposed unorthodox doctrine. In this letter, Newton warned the man to 1) consider his opponent, 2) consider the public, and 3)...

The doctrine of indwelling sin is one of the most important doctrines a Christian can diligently study. If we are going to make progress in growth in grace, we must gain a right understanding of indwelling sin. If we are going to be resolved to fight against the remainder of sin in our flesh, until...

In a letter to his disciple, Joseph Bellamy, Jonathan Edwards praised Petrus Van Mastrict’s Theologia Theoretico-Practica as being “much better than…any other Book in the world, excepting the Bible, in my opinion.”1

I have long wanted to compare Mastricht’s theology...

On Saturday, February 17, 1739, George Whitefield resolved that he would commit himself to the task of evangelistic preaching to the coal miners in Kingswood. It was well known that the coal miners were uneducated and spiritually ignorant members of society. Nevertheless, stories of tears running...

Over the past decade a floodwater of cultural change in our country has occurred, leaving a massive impact on the church in America. 20 years ago, there was a push to address the issue of mercy ministry and evangelism in our churches. Much of this was, no doubt, a helpful corrective to a perceived...

Scripture is full of double-entendres. Often they are found in the historical details in the Gospels that serve to teach spiritual lessons. Perhaps the most vivid of these is the account of Simon the Cyrene bearing the cross after Jesus (Luke 23:26). The Savior, having been scourged and weakened by...

I have learned–both from personal experience and from pastoral ministry–that change can be among the most unsettling dynamics of life in this fallen world. We are a people of change living in a world subject to change. When we put our confidence in created things or set our hearts on...