The gospel preacher’s responsibility is not to the institution that employs him, the congregation that likes him, or the reputation he has built. It is to God who commissioned him, to the church whose truth he represents, and to the hearers who need what he has…
Among all the forms that sin takes, four are identified in Scripture with unusual consistency and severity: hypocrisy, slander, worldly pleasure, and selfishness. They are “cardinal” not because they are the only sins but because they are foundational patterns — forms of sin that shape the…
This warning from the Lord establishes the terrifying possibility that one can acknowledge Jesus verbally and intellectually yet be rejected at the judgment for a lack of obedient action.
Christ is the Prince of Peace, who alone gives peace with God, peace with others, and peace within; sin is the disturber of all three, and that peace is enjoyed only by being reconciled to God in Christ and submitting to His terms. Everyone is hunting…
Because the church is a body of members held to a standard of Christian conduct, it has both the right and the duty to discipline disorderly members — teaching and admonishing them toward repentance, withdrawing from the impenitent, and restoring the penitent — and the neglect…
Christianity — specifically, the obedient response to the gospel — is the only absolutely sure position for eternal life. Every other position carries a risk that Christianity does not. The call is to make it as sure as ye can. Pilate’s command was addressed to the…
Preaching is not one method of Christian communication among others — it is the method that God ordained for the propagation of the gospel, that every generation of the church has required, and without which no generation can hear. Its weakness in any era is not…
Separation is the governing experience of fallen human existence. It begins with the separation of man from God in the garden and ends at the judgment with the ultimate, eternal separation of the righteous and the wicked. Between those two poles, every form of separation —…
Content: Planning without God is arrogant boasting, and James calls it evil. Ecclesiastes reminds us that God appoints the times, and James warns that life is a vapor. The faithful alternative is humble submission: “If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.” This lesson calls us to repent of self-rule and bring every plan under the Lord’s authority.
Everyone forms some estimate of Christ, and most estimates fall short of the truth; only the confession “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” is the correct one — and which estimate a person holds settles his destiny. At Caesarea Philippi Jesus asked…