The problems that multiply with the number of preachers are not primarily doctrinal in the obvious sense — they are structural and character problems that arise when the preacher’s role is not well understood or well executed. A church with a clear understanding of what a…
Sanctification means to set apart — to consecrate something or someone for God’s specific use or service. The word carries no inherent reference to moral sinlessness; it refers to the status of belonging to God, of being separated from common use for sacred use. In the…
The Bible does not define sin abstractly — it defines it relationally and legally. “Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness” (I John 3:4). Sin is the violation of God’s law. This definition is sufficient: it specifies what sin is (lawlessness), relates…
No one can afford to despise small things — the universe is built of them, God made and cares for them, Christ tended the “little ones,” and Christian character and service grow little by little — so the believer must be faithful in the small things…
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…
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 —…