Familiarity of the tender variety persists in reminding you of the gospel and deepening your communion with Christ. But if you’re not careful, cold-hearted familiarity will betray you with kisses, poison your wineglass, and watch impassively while your life slips steadily away. You might not even realize it’s happening. Unexamined familiarity will prevent you from... Continue Reading

The good news of Jesus Christ—who he is and what he accomplished by his death, resurrection, and exaltation—is simply incoherent unless certain structures are already in place. You cannot make heads or tails of the real Jesus unless you have categories for the personal/transcendent God of the Bible; the nature of human beings made in... Continue Reading

While many presbyteries will grant an exception to the Westminster Standards to a man who believes worldly recreations are permissible on the Sabbath, are presbyteries granting exceptions also for worldly entertainment and commerce on the Sabbath? And are candidates and officers in the PCA stating the full extent of their differences? A difference with the “recreations clause”... Continue Reading

Jews often associated with Gentiles, especially in Antioch (Josephus, Jewish War 2.45, 463). Cephas, however, seems to have started to “live like a Gentile” (Gal. 2:14), probably in the sense that he had ceased to observe Jewish dietary restrictions. In response to a heavenly vision (Acts 10:9–16; 11:4–10), he had tossed out an important Jewish... Continue Reading

If there is no one to endow human rights, how can everyone be expected to honor them? There remains widespread agreement that genocide, terrorism, and slavery are wrong, but by what authority will we continue to agree? Glenn Scrivener offered the best answer to these questions. “Rights indeed belong to all,” he says, “—that’s the... Continue Reading

Paul continues his instructions for husbands in Eph 5:19: Husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but NOURISHES and CHERISHES it. Here, Paul goes to the world of tender care for infants for an analogy, using two words loaded... Continue Reading

Satan’s false flag operation is fueling misgivings about Biblical teaching concerning gender differences, fatherhood and motherhood, roles in marriage and male leadership in the church. (The church’s government notably has as its head a man, the man Christ Jesus, who set it up, who shed his blood for sinners in love and appoints men to... Continue Reading

Hell is supposed to make us uncomfortable. This side of heaven, it is not a sign of spiritual health to be untroubled by the horrors of hell — that humans like us, made in God’s image for fullness of joy, will spend eternity under the righteous frown of his omnipotent justice. As theologian Wayne Grudem writes,... Continue Reading

Those who suggest that a Christian can and should attend an illegitimate, sinful “wedding” have suggested that attending the wedding of a friend or loved one is the compassionate thing to do so that we as Christians do not appear judgmental and that it is sometimes necessary for preserving the relationship. True compassion, however, does... Continue Reading

We need to recognize other foundations that compete with Scripture. Here are several common foundations for theology: human reason, human emotions, (i.e. man’s likes and dislikes, loves and aversions, hopes and fears), dreams, visions, or a so-called “Inner Light”, church history and/or tradition, superstition, oral tradition, and legends, Roman Catholic Magisterium, and personal experience. While... Continue Reading