From the moment Adam assented to and acted on the lie that the forbidden fruit would make him like God, unbelief became the reigning characteristic in all of God’s image bearers. Like a deep-rooted cancer, the distorting nature of disbelief marred the human race. And as humanity grew so too did the...

Roald Dahl provided for my wife and I, when we first got married, a proper philosophy of home with his memorable instruction, “Please, oh PLEASE, we beg, we pray, Go throw your TV set away. And in its place you can install, a lovely bookshelf on the wall.” 2019 saw many more books added to that...

The Christian world is thinking and talking a lot about sanctification; how to grow in godliness and live holy lives. Amen! O that we would do so more and more! But I want to contend that in thinking through a believer’s sanctification we cannot do so rightly without first thinking through our...

Considering what I would preach if I could only preach one sermon is an interesting and probing question, and yet, I think it would be fair to say that many pastors often do preach just one sermon. You know who they are, the pastor whose particular hobby horse always and inevitably arises in any...

The Psalmist certainly professes a great truth when he remarks “how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity.” But if we’re honest, this passage can often sound like an unattainable rhetorical ideal; not a commonly celebrated experience. Perfect unity within the body of Christ has got...

For English Reformed Orthodoxy, the doctrine of a believer’s union with Christ was paramount. John Owen, enunciating the centrality of a believer’s union, exclaimed that our union with Christ is the “principle and measure of all spiritual enjoyments and expectations.” [1] Likewise Thomas Goodwin...

All that the church is can be found in her union with Christ. As John Calvin has so memorably put it, “we must remember that as long as Christ remains outside of us, and we are separated from him, all that he has suffered and done for the salvation of the human race remains useless and of no value...

Reading through Sinclair Ferguson’s book Some Pastors and Teachers feels akin, or so I imagine, to sitting down with the author and getting to hear first hand what it was that sharpened and formed him into the pastor, preacher, and theologian he is today. Each chapter excels at informing the reader...

At the end of this week’s outstanding podcast on the Historical Adam and Crucifying the Old Man, the question was asked about which books should be considered essential reading when it comes to the doctrines of our union with Christ, Federal headship, and Imputation. Each book suggested I too would...

Five hundred years ago the Protestant Reformation changed the theological and ecclesiastical landscape forever. And yet, was that something that only made sense in their historical context? Is the Reformation over, a quirk of history, only brought up in Church History classes? Perhaps we should we...

It could be argued that the very concept of primary and secondary doctrines is a very Protestant problem, precisely because it comes down to an understanding of interpretive authority. Older writers referred to primary doctrines as dogma, those doctrines which have a definite and decidedly fixed...

Not too long ago at a small party, I was chatting with a young lady who had just switched churches. She had left a rather large, seeker-sensitive type of church in the Washington D.C. area, a church which put a lot of emphasis on the worship experience. And she had now joined a much smaller,...

To rightly read and understand Scripture takes a fair share of mental energy. One should not and can not check his mind at the door while engaging with God’s revealed word. And thankfully there has been a resurgence within evangelicalism for thinking deeply about God’s word. This is essential and...

The Westminster Confession of Faith begins with what many have deemed some of the most well articulated statements concerning the doctrine of Scripture. And incorporated right into the confession’s understanding of Scripture is a brief, little clause on how one might do theology. The clause, which...

Private Prayer is the life source for every true believer. And yet, while we would acknowledge the truth that praying is to the Christian as breathing is to any living creature, we would also admit along with Martin Luther that prayer is “the hardest work of all...a labor above all labors, since he...

The Puritan movement was known firstly as a resurgence of biblical of preaching; its focus was upon the right preaching of God’s word which would transform and revive not only the Church but also the nation, and if the Lord so willed, also the world! As Dr. Irvonwy Morgan understood it, “the...

For John Calvin, worship was central to life - it is why man exists. Worship was also central to his understanding of the Reformation, for he believed that the church’s return to true worship was the flowering fruit of all that was being done in his time. Other than the preaching of God’s word, it...

Beware the church that is always trying to make Christianity cool again; far more often than not, their hearts are preoccupied with what the world wants than what God wants. Of course it could be argued that Christianity has never been cool. That’s fine. St. John’s Revelation of Jesus Christ...

The name evangelical was early on attributed to the Reformers and to Luther himself, and it was of course a fitting title as it not only grasped their recovery of the gospel, but also their emphasis upon it and the good news it declared. For Luther that good news only made sense in light of the bad...

When Satan tempted Eve in the Garden of Eden his angle of attack was to bring into question the sufficiency of God’s word. “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden?” Not only did Satan, like a good legalist, subtly add on to God’s word by adding the command 'any tree in...

“Post-Christian” is just one of the many titles being used these days to describe our brave new world, a world where absolute truth and the Truth have been pushed to our societal margins. And of course, this should come as no surprise to the alert and watchful Christian who has been following our...

Our extraordinary God loves the ordinary. And it seems that in his extraordinary salvation of sinners he loves to use ordinary means. This is true even in the extraordinarily gracious preservation of his children; ordinary means mark the road all the way home to our final rest in Christ. Indeed,...

The word depravity implies the absence of something that used to be abundant. In considering the doctrine of man’s total depravity it’s good to see first that man, Adam, was totally good, righteous, and upright. This is what Solomon taught when he declared that “God made man upright” (Ecclesiastes...

In today’s America it’s pretty much an accepted dictum that true freedom is being able to choose whatever it is we desire. And when it comes to sexuality and gay rights, this is especially the case. If a man desires to be with another man, true freedom is being able to do so without any restraints...