Love for God is not a feeling — it is a pattern of obedience. What looks like love but does not produce obedience is not love. What produces obedience, even in the absence of feeling, is love. The normal condition of the human heart is to…
The first gospel sermon ever preached included the resurrection of Christ. Peter did not work up to it, hedge it, or place it at the end as a supplement to a more comfortable message. It was the message. The sermon’s burden is to show why: not…
The New Testament neither silences women nor makes them interchangeable with men in every function. It assigns them a specific, honorable, and demanding sphere — private instruction, domestic formation, and teaching younger women — while reserving public proclamation to qualified men. The grounding of this restriction…
Because God is all-wise, all-powerful, and good, He gave a book that completely supplies man’s every spiritual need; Scripture is therefore sufficient, and the man of God equipped by it needs nothing added to it. A congregation rarely denies the Bible outright. It simply acts as…
Every person who has ever faced his own sin has had to say the same three words: “I have sinned” — but what those three words mean depends entirely on the heart that speaks them. “I have sinned.” The phrase runs through Scripture like a wound….
The tetelestai of John 19:30 marks the completion of the atoning work — not the end of Christ’s activity. The risen, ascended Christ is presently reigning as king (Col. 1:13), interceding as mediator (Heb. 7:25), governing as head of the church (Col. 1:18), adding the obedient…
Pardon is not a vague benefit distributed in unspecified ways; it is a specific restoration to a specific condition, given through specific means authorized by the specific person who has the right to grant it. There are two laws of pardon: one for the alien sinner…
Revelation and inspiration are distinct acts in a related chain: God reveals truth about himself; inspiration ensures that revelation is accurately recorded and transmitted in human language. Divine revelation comes in two forms — general (through nature) and special (through direct communication, visions, prophets, and ultimately…
Burdens are not all curses; God uses some to strengthen us, commands us to share others, and invites us to cast on Him the ones no man can carry — and wisdom is knowing which burden is which. We treat every burden as an enemy to…
What looks like defeat is often the path to victory in God’s kingdom: we lose life to save it, find it by losing it, gain by spending, live by dying, and conquer through the cross — for the way of the cross leads to life, and…