From my childhood up, my mind had been full of objections to the doctrine of God’s sovereignty. . . . But I have often, since that first conviction, had quite another kind of sense of God’s sovereignty than I had then. I have often since had not only a conviction, but a delightful conviction. The…
Category: Health
Overcoming Spiritual Laziness
Audio Transcript How do we overcome half-hearted spiritual laziness? That’s the question today and Thursday. And speaking of zeal for God, I should first mention again that this October we’re celebrating the Reformation — Martin Luther’s great stand against the pope and against Rome’s spiritual abuses and theological errors. But Luther didn’t stand alone. Other…
Some Mock, Others Believe: Pondering Strangeness in Our Preaching
You bring some strange things to our ears. Some in Athens said it to the apostle Paul. Some in America will say it to faithful preachers today. Of course, strange is a relative term. What’s familiar to some is foreign to others — whether in multicultural cities or, even now, in more rural and monolithic…
Having Babies Is Hard: The Grace We Need in Labor Pains
“Something is stabbing me in the back!” I yelled at my husband. When he didn’t jump to his feet to dislodge the knife, or the needle, or whatever else had impaled my spine, I screamed to him again: “Help me! I’m being stabbed!” Eyes wide, he turned to the nurses. What was wrong with me?…
Christ Is King: A Warning to God’s Foes
If I were still an enemy of God, if I still dwelled in rebel camps outside his kingdom, if I still played the madman slinging stones at my Creator, this audible response to our amassed assault would empty my blood of courage. I would sooner hear the threats of the archangel, the blast of the…
Rome’s Seven Deadly Errors
Audio Transcript Today we talk about some of the deadliest errors of present-day Roman Catholicism. And over the next month, we look at Rome historically. This October, we’re celebrating the Reformation — Martin Luther’s great stand against the pope and against Rome’s spiritual abuses and theological errors. But Luther didn’t stand alone. Other men stood…
Every Promise Is Yes in Him: The Privilege and Power of Union with Christ
My view of preaching is that the preacher’s job is to receive from God a word through Scripture, hold it up before God’s people, point them to it, and say, “Look!” He then opens it with connections to Scripture and life, and exults over it in such a way that, by God’s grace, the hearers…
Should Christians Bet on Sports?
Who won the game last night? When do they play next? You open your computer to check the scores, and along the way, the ads are inescapable. You couldn’t avoid them if you tried. Sports betting has arrived in full force. The advertisers are not wasting their money either. In February 2024, an estimated 68…
Can dry bones speak?
Can dry bones speak? Posted by appolus on September 24, 2024 Can these bones live? A question asked of God to Ezekiel in a great valley which represented all of Israel (Ezek 37) What great valley stretches our before us in our day? Christendom lies motionless in the valley of death, mere bones glistening in the…
Growing Wise as We Grow Old: How Hardship Teaches Us to Hope
I just attended my fortieth high school reunion. It feels a bit surreal to write that. Forty years have passed already? It’s another reminder of my recent reflections: our lives are very brief, briefer than we’d like to think. I remember graduation day like it was yesterday: all of us a mere seventeen or eighteen…