While these themes have taken center stage at particular periods in the church’s history, that is only the tip of the iceberg. They are perennially relevant because underneath them lies the most fundamental question of all: Who is the God whom we come to know in Jesus Christ (John 17:3)? What is he really like,... Continue Reading

Like everyone else, I thought that the celebrity writers of these bright, flowery studies were biblical. They certainly contained some familiar Bible verses and talked about God – and sometimes Jesus. But the narrative almost always seemed to point to the author, and her life, and her countless anecdotes about her kids, her husband, her... Continue Reading

The end of “Out of the Woods” makes sense to people today. If the highest purpose of life is to discover yourself, then everything – including our relationships – must be reoriented to that view of self-discovery and self-exploration. The dissolution of the relationship is now a good thing if it prompts that crucial moment of... Continue Reading

We live in a time when local churches come and go.  Sometimes a person gets a “vision” to plant a church, so they just go ahead and do it with very little planning or purposely formed biblical foundations.  On the other hand, some local churches that have been around for a while simply go on... Continue Reading

“The 1559 Institutio is great theology, and it is uncanny how often, as we read and re-read it, we come across passages that seem to speak directly across the centuries to our own hearts and our own present-day theological debates. You never seem to get to the book’s bottom; it keeps opening up as a... Continue Reading

“But we probably all know Christians who are anything but gentle and respectful, people who for one reason or another are incurable smart alecks or have a mountain-sized ego that devours the oxygen in any room they enter. Little though they realize it, the more they open their mouths, the more they discredit their cause.... Continue Reading

“Best books” lists are unavoidably idiosyncratic—hence an effort at recommending “significant” books for pastors. This may well mean a pastor should read them, but it certainly means a pastor should, at least, be aware of them. My criteria remain the same: (a) I try to include a range of genres, since different books contribute different... Continue Reading

Packer has practiced for decades what we like to call “accessible theology,” which lies midway between abstruse academic writing and pop over-simplification. Packer has provided both the tersest definition of Christian belief that I know of—“God saves sinners”—and one of the most readable books on that subject, Knowing God.   J.I. Packer turns 90 this... Continue Reading

The combination of rampant commercialism, individualism and heresy has so weakened the church in the UK and the US, that there is a real and present danger we will become like the ‘seven churches’ of Asia – wiped out by the incoming tide of an increasingly paganistic post-modern confused culture. Of course the gates of... Continue Reading

“In The Abolition of Man, C.S. Lewis sets out to persuade his audience of the importance and relevance of universal values such as courage and honor in contemporary society. Both astonishing and prophetic, this books is one of the most debated of Lewis’s extraordinary works.”   In a 1993 talk, Peter Kreeft, professor of philosophy... Continue Reading