Jim Hamilton, Brian Vickers, and I recently co-edited a Festschrift for our Doktorvater Tom Schreiner. The book is titled God’s Glory Revealed in Christ: Essays in Honor of Tom Schreiner (B&H, 2019). The week before Thanksgiving, the publisher was kind enough to host a banquet in San Diego where we were able to present this volume formally to Tom. It was a special moment for all of us who love Tom and who have been touched by his friendship, scholarship, and ministry. I am really grateful for all of those who agreed to contribute. It really is an all-star line-up including D. A. Carson, John Piper, Albert Mohler, Simon Gathercole,…
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Spurgeon urging men and women to be “all at it”
Over the weekend, I saw an excerpt from C. H. Spurgeon’s sermon “All at It” being passed around on social media. It is a sermon well worth your time to read if you haven’t already. Spurgeon’s text is Acts 8:4-5, 35: 4 Therefore, those who had been scattered went about preaching the word. 5 And Philip went down to the city of Samaria and began proclaiming Christ to them… 35 And Philip opened his mouth, and beginning from this Scripture he preached Jesus to him. The overall point of the sermon is that it wasn’t merely the apostles who were called to evangelize the world but all Christians. All are…
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Greet one another with a holy kiss…
I am preparing a sermon on the final chapter of 1 Corinthians for church tomorrow. In my reading, I came across an insightful bit of commentary from Richard Hays on verse 20, where Paul commands: “Greet one another with a holy kiss.” Hays explains: There is no indication here that Paul thinks of it as anything more than a sign of greeting among people who love one another. In the context of the community’s divisions at Corinth, however, the holy kiss would necessarily serve as a powerful sign of reconciliation among people who had previously been estranged. It is easy to interpret this brief imperative (“Greet one another with a…
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The Morning of My Years
I first heard Allen Levi sing “Morning of My years” when I was in my twenties. The song is about turning forty. After hearing the lyrics for the first time, I remember hoping that this would be my perspective when it came time for me to turn that page. And now that I’ve turned that page some years ago, I still think about this song every year at my birthday. It meant a lot to me then, and it still does now. It represents hopefulness for the grace to age like wine and not like milk. Lord, have mercy on me, the sinner. The song first appeared on an album…
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Iron Sharpening Iron: Continuing the Conversation with Sam Storms
I want to thank Sam Storms for his gracious and direct interaction with my response to his earlier essay. I want to reiterate again how grateful I am for Dr. Storms and his long ministry and faithfulness to the Lord’s work. I have been a direct beneficiary of it, and I am truly in his debt. My hope and prayer are that our ongoing dialogue will be a faithful example of iron sharpening iron (Prov. 27:17). Storms says that I have largely missed the point of his article arguing that women can be pastors. As I understand it, he has argued that the title pastor is a gift not an…
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Can Women Be Pastors?
Sam Storms has written a brief article making a complementarian argument that would allow women to serve as pastors.1 He argues that pastoring is a gift not an authoritative office in the church. While all elders need to have the gift of pastoring, it does not follow that all “pastors” must be elders. After doing a brief survey of biblical texts that employ “pastor” terminology, he surmises: It stands to reason that all Elders must, in some sense, be pastors. But nothing in the way this verb is used should lead us to believe that all pastors must be Elders. No text asserts the latter. Because a pastor is not…
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Praise and Prayer for Kanye
Over the weekend, I had a chance to listen to Kanye West’s new album and to watch some interviews with him. It’s an amazing thing to watch because everything I’ve seen points to a radical conversion to Jesus Christ. In an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel last week, Kimmel asks West, “Would you consider yourself to be a Christian music artist now?” West responds, “I’m just a Christian everything.” That is certainly clear in the lyrics of West’s new album “Jesus is King.” The track “Selah” has a line that gets to the heart of West’s conversion:
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What can happen when a transgender child transitions…
Like many of you, I have been watching the news out of Texas about a mother who was just awarded sole custody of her gender-confused child. The details of this custody battle are disturbing. Here’s the gist of it from Lifesite News: A jury in Dallas, Texas has ruled against Jeffrey Younger, the father who is trying to protect his seven-year-old son, James, from chemical castration via a gender “transition.” This means James’ mother, Dr. Anne Georgulas, will be able to continue “transitioning” him into “Luna,” and now has full authority to start him on puberty blockers and eventually cross-sex hormones. The jury’s decision likely means that Mr. Younger will…
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“…while doctors strip our children of their healthy reproductive organs”
I just read the heartbreaking words of a mother of a transgender child—words that were delivered recently at a demonstration outside the Supreme Court. In this speech, she testifies about what transgender propaganda has done to her daughter. The propaganda has created “standards of care” that are harmful to children. Read for yourself what this mother describes:
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Albert Mohler Offers 10 Points on Complementarianism in the SBC
Earlier today, Albert Mohler delivered a timely and needed chapel message on complementarianism. It is a message that is timely not only for our seminary community but also for our entire denomination—the Southern Baptist Convention. In the last half of the message, Mohler offers ten points on complementarianism in our denominational life. I have the video above cued up to begin at those ten points. Below you can read my notes on the ten points. I have some quotes sprinkled in here and there, but my notes are no substitute for listening to the entire message. I hope you will.
