I have been preaching through 2 Corinthians and on Sunday made it through verses 5-7 of chapter 13. In this text, Paul tells believers to examine themselves whether they are in the faith. Essentially, he tells them, “You don’t need to be examining me and whether I’m a true apostle. You need to be examining yourselves to see if you are really even in the faith at all.” It’s a very practical text and certainly crucial for us to understand. You can download the message here or listen below.
-
-
The Bible of “Trumpists”? Hardly.
Over the weekend, sociologist Samuel Perry raised eyebrows by suggesting that the ESV is the official Bible translation for “Trumpists.” I’m not sure what he was trying to accomplish with this. Was he trying to cast shade on the ESV by showing the nefarious characters who read such a translation? About an hour and a half after posting this, he shared some data that sort of deflates the nefarious connotation of his earlier claim. The data show that readers of the NIV, Amplified, and KJV are also likely Trump voters. He then draws a more limited conclusion, saying that “voters who read evangelical translations vote like evangelicals.” Hardly earth-shattering news.…
-
Does the Bible Portray the Triune God as Feminine?
Last night I posted an item on Twitter that received a good bit of negative reaction from some readers. While reading through Chapter 7 of Herman Bavinck’s excellent book The Christian Family, I posted several quotations from the chapter. This is something I frequently do when reading material that stands out to me. You can look through my timeline and see clusters of quotations from books that I believed were worth sharing. But a quotation from Bavinck last night seems to have touched a nerve. Here’s what I posted last night from Bavinck’s work (in order of appearance on my timeline): 12:06am: “People and nations were very different from each…
-
Can a true Christian lack assurance of salvation?
Thomas Watson addresses whether a true Christian may lack assurance of salvation: “We must distinguish between weakness of faith and nullity. A weak faith is true. The bruised reed is but weak, yet it is such as Christ will not break. Though thy faith be but weak, yet be not discouraged. A weak faith may receive a strong Christ; a weak hand can tie the knot in marriage as well as a strong; a weak eye might have seen the brazen serpent. The promise is not made to strong faith, but to true. The promise doth not say, Whosoever hath a giant faith that can remove mountains, that can stop…
-
Top 10 YouTubes of 2022
It’s time for my annual posting of the Top 10 YouTube Videos of the Year (see last year’s list here). This ranking is totally unscientific, and there’s actually more than 10 videos this time. Only one person was polled to compile this list—yours truly. This year’s slate of videos has both humor and humanity with some other odds and ends thrown in. If you think I’ve left something out, let me know. I’ll think about adding an “Honorable Mention” category at the bottom. Enjoy! If you’re interested, here are links to lists from previous years: 2021 |2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 |…
-
A Plan to Read through the Bible in 2023
In years past, my customary mode for reading through the Bible every year involved starting in Genesis and reading right through to Revelation. I estimated that about four chapters per day would get me through in under a year’s time. The method worked reasonably well, but it wasn’t without its problems. Sometimes I would miss a day (or days) and get behind, and I had no way to keep up with my progress. I needed a schedule so that I could keep myself accountable for finishing in a year. In 2009, therefore, I did something I had never done before. I followed a Bible reading plan. I adopted Robert Murray…
-
Is God Enough When You Suffer?
Below is a message that I preached to our church at the beginning of the year, and now it seems appropriate to share at the end as well. It’s on the first two chapters of the book of Job. The key question of the book is NOT “Why do bad things happen to good people?” The key question is “How will good people respond when bad things happened to them?” Will God be enough for them? All people suffer. But not all of us suffer in the same way. Not everyone sees God’s hand in their suffering. Even among those who do, not all can accept it. For some people,…
-
Let every heart prepare him room!
How could there possibly be anything more mysterious and wonderful than the incarnation of Jesus Christ? God became a man. God took on mortal human flesh. Even though he himself was unfallen, he subjected himself to the brokenness of this fallen world. He sneezed. He coughed. He got headaches and an upset stomach. Every morning he got up, shook the dust out of His hair, and put his hand to the plow in his Father’s field. The incarnate Son of God was obedient even to the point of death. And three days later, what was mortal became swallowed up by immortality in the resurrection. Even now, the resurrected Christ sits…
-
The How and Why of Church Discipline – 2 Corinthians 13:1-4
I have been preaching through 2 Corinthians and on Sunday made it through the first four verses of chapter 13. In this text, Paul gives us a glimpse of how corrective discipline is supposed to happen in a church and why he’s threatening such discipline against some troublemakers in Corinth. It’s a very practical text and certainly crucial for us to understand. You can download the message here or listen below.
-
Practical Advice for Christian Parents of a Child Identifying as Transgender
Over the last decade, there has been about a 4,000 percent increase in children declaring they are transgender. Even more alarming is the fact that the majority of this increase has been occurring among adolescent young women. Abigail Shrier has chronicled this story in her watershed book Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters (Regnery, 2020). In my work for CBMW, I am traveling and speaking about this issue all the time. In my own experience, I can confirm that what Shrier writes about in Irreversible Damage is happening across the country, even among young women in evangelical churches. For that reason, parents and pastors often ask me for…
