The heart of Christian discipleship is growing to know Jesus, beholding Him through faith, loving Him who first loved us. To grow in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ sets the trajectory of the Christian life. Grace points us away from self to Christ. We decrease; Christ increases. Our unworthiness, waywardness, and inability lead us... Continue Reading

When it comes to motivating our people, we may need to be firm, yet we should always be gentle. We do not need to breathe fire, nor do we need to yell at them. Back in the day people might have been motivated that way, and in some circles maybe they still are. But that... Continue Reading

I love the church. I fully endorse Calvin’s way of putting it (and the shadow of Cyprian that lies behind it): “For there is no other way to enter into life unless this mother conceive us in her womb, give us birth, nourish us at her breast, and lastly, unless she keep us under her... Continue Reading

If you are convinced that God has called you into His service, then you must be faithful to the task he has placed before you. Imagine the horror of Isaiah hearing the call of God to proclaim the truth and then choosing to walk away into the Judean desert the first time he ran into... Continue Reading

Most millennials have been discipled by the culture into a “live and let live” mindset when it comes to sexual expression. The result is that warning often feels like hate, rather than love. However, we have to keep Jesus’ interaction with the rich young man in mind (Mark 10:17-22). Verse 21 says that Jesus looked... Continue Reading

When we sing “Amazing Grace” as a gathered church, we are not singing empty words. The verses contain doctrine about our God that originate in the pages of the Bible. Such knowledge about the wonder and beauty and love of God should lift us to the heights of praise. It’s not the arrangement or the... Continue Reading

Let’s stop with the hermeneutical gymnastics and affirm what Scripture literally teaches: Christ is the centre of the story of Exodus, the Bible, and the Universe. Let’s have the faith of Moses who “considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward” (Heb 11:26).    ... Continue Reading

The task of Christian nurture, then, is to provide children and young people with Biblical thought-forms, an intellectual framework which is Scripturally informed, so that the message will be neither meaningless nor misunderstood by its being presented on a different cultural wavelength. That they recognize the difference does not necessarily follow, and this fact accentuates... Continue Reading

The Bible can sympathize with this feeling of bondage, and yet it never avoids holding us morally responsible for our actions. We are moral agents, and the Bible treats us as such, even in the face of addictive habits. Ed Welch points out that drunkenness serves as a prototype for all addictions in the Bible,... Continue Reading

A question arises. How much was Thomas a ‘career academic’, dedicated to establishing ‘the truth’? And how much was his mission to serve God in and through serving the church? Thomas of course would distinguish these tasks while not separating them.   Thomas’ early life was one of riches to rags. Born to nobility in... Continue Reading