Kirk Cameron and his son recently recorded a podcast in which they both adopted an annihilationist view on Hell. This view holds that the damned do not suffer in hell permanently but eventually cease to exist. Jim Hamilton, Tom Sculthorpe, and I refute this view in podcast linked below. You can watch or listen to the podcast below.
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On a New Sexuality Statement at the Evangelical Theological Society
On this episode of the CBMW Podcast, Jonathan Swan, Denny Burk, and Colin Smothers discuss the adoption of a new statement on LGBTQ by the board of the Evangelical Theological Society. You can watch the video below, or you can tune into Spotify or Apple podcast versions below that.
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What Happened at ETS 2025?
I attended the annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society last week in Boston. Readers may wonder why I take time to write an annual round-up of the goings-on at such an event. The bottom line is pretty simple. This is where evangelical scholars and theologians gather to engage one another in academically rigorous theological debate. These are the authors who shape the pastors who in turn shape congregations across North America. What starts at ETS often doesn’t stay at ETS but eventually makes its way to the pews. For example, I had my first debate about whether same-sex attraction is sinful at the 2014 annual meeting of the ETS.…
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Why Is John’s Gospel So Different from the Others?
One of the great ironies of the Gospel of John: The Greek version of this gospel is on the level of “See spot run.” It’s some of the easiest and most basic Greek that you will read anywhere. And yet, John fills these simple expressions with the most profound statements of Jesus’ identity and divine nature. It’s no wonder that the Nicene Creed is so indebted to the words of John’s Gospel. As I have been preaching through this book, I have told our congregation that the Gospel of John is like an ocean. There are parts of it that are shallow enough for a toddler to splash around in…
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Should Women Serve as “Shepherds”? – CBMW Podcast
As I mentioned earlier this week, some churches are appointing female “shepherds” in an effort to get around the biblical prohibition on female “pastors.” On this episode of The CBMW Podcast, we discuss what the Bible says about gender, the office of pastor, and why it matters. [Watch below on YouTube, or listen below on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.]
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Why I Do Not Favor the Moniker “Biblical Patriarchy”
Complementarian doctrine doesn’t require adherents to adopt a certain label for their view. It’s far more important for people to accept and affirm the Bible’s teaching on manhood and womanhood than for them to embrace any specific moniker for it. Having said that, there is great value in being precise and clear when thinking about and communicating Christian doctrine. For that reason, I still prefer and recommend the use of the term “complementarianism” to label our position over “biblical patriarchy.” I have made a positive case for “complementarianism” elsewhere. In this essay, I want to respond to some of the critiques in Doug Ponder’s thoughtful essay weighing the relative merits…
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The Innermost Meaning of the Cross is Penal Substitution
“Surely our griefs He Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way; But the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all To fall on Him… But the LORD was pleased To crush Him, putting Him to grief; If He would render Himself as a guilt offering, He will see His offspring, He will…
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Can Complementarianism include female associate pastors?
Someone recently asked me a question about complementarianism, and I thought it might be useful to share with readers more broadly the answer that I gave privately–especially in light of recent controversies in the Southern Baptist Convention concerning women serving as pastors. Here’s the question followed by my lightly edited answer. Do you think complementarianism is a big enough tent to include those who restrict the office of elder/senior pastor to men but still allow women to serve in associate pastors roles? From a normative perspective, I think the answer is clearly no. If we take The Danvers Statement as baseline complementarianism, it says that some governing and teaching roles…
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The Ground of All Human Assurance before God
Source: This is an excerpt from Don Carson’s message at the Bethlehem 2016 Conference for Pastors and Church Leaders in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
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The Innermost Meaning of the Cross
“But the LORD was pleased To crush Him, putting Him to grief; If He would render Himself as a guilt offering, He will see His offspring, He will prolong His days, And the good pleasure of the LORD will prosper in His hand.” -Isaiah 53:10 “God put [Christ] forward as a propitiation in His blood through faith, in order to demonstrate His righteousness.” -Romans 3:25 “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us– for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.’” -Galatians 3:13 “It is those who cannot come to terms with any concept of the wrath of God…
