“Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth” (II Tim. 2:15). The call to accurate handling of the word implies the capacity for it — which means it implies study….
The burden is two-sided. First: a significant portion of the confusion about the Lord’s Supper comes from names that are not biblical — Eucharist, sacrament, emblems — names that carry theological freight the New Testament does not authorize. The names must be corrected before the practice…
Somebody must fill all second places. The refusal to do so — the insistence on first place when God, time, or circumstance has assigned the second — is one of the most consistent causes of failure in life. The man or woman who can take second…
The soul is worth more than the whole world — the Lord said so, and his statement has never been answered. The person who would not trade their house for a dollar still trades their soul daily for far less than the whole world. The four…
The true theory of inspiration is grounded in God’s consistent pattern of working through the natural, the providential, and the miraculous in a purposeful economy — never using more than the situation requires. In inspiration, the Spirit exercised a special providential and miraculous influence over both…
No matter what view of inspiration a person takes, no errors were made in the original manuscripts. The degrees of inspiration among biblical writers — varying from Christ’s highest (the Spirit without measure) to Luke’s sufficient level for his careful historical investigation — are not evidence…
The Holy Spirit’s role in material creation is not incidental — it is specific, distinct from the roles of the Father and the Son, and ongoing. The Father originated and rules; the Word created and sustains; the Spirit organized the chaotic mass, gave laws for the…
The Christ of the Gospels is not the passive, mournful figure that a certain tradition of piety has constructed. He resisted evil actively, condemned sin publicly, denounced hypocrisy with more severity than any other sin, and felt genuine indignation at the hardness of heart that preferred…
The crucifixion of Jesus was not accomplished by unusually evil people — it was accomplished by ordinary sins operating in ordinary people. The sins that crucified him are not confined to first-century Jerusalem; they are present in every generation, in every community, and in every congregation….
The curse fell on Meroz not for what it did but for what it failed to do. Jehovah was victorious without them; the battle was won; the enemy was destroyed. Meroz was not needed for the outcome. But Meroz needed the blessing that would have come…