Mark 13:11 promises that followers of Jesus will be given words by the Spirit to speak when they stand before civil and religious authorities in the context of persecution. Below is but a brief theological explanation as to why this promise is not for us today but for those in the Tribulation, a time of… Continue Reading
Christians are people of the book. Conservative Evangelical Christians, in particular, demand that their beliefs and lives be governed by Scripture. Yet what, exactly, that means is not always clear, particularly when dealing with matters of Christian living. On the one hand, some Christians believe that the Bible is an exhaustive list of prescriptions and… Continue Reading
Martin Luther did not want to revolutionize completely the traditional worship of the Western church. He did, however, believe that preaching of the Word had been sorely neglected. In 1523, he published some instructions on the “Order of Public Worship,” and therein he identified three errors that were common in papal worship services: (1) the… Continue Reading
John Frame is among one of the most influential theologians to defend contemporary worship music and practice, particularly through his two popular books, Worship in Spirit and Truth and Contemoprary Worship Music. What many may not realize is that his philosophy expounded in these books emerges from a softening and redefinition of the governing doctrine of his… Continue Reading
“My faith has found a resting place, not in device nor creed.” So goes the hymn, and if taken over-literally, we might agree. Our faith does not rest in a creed, or even in propositions that explain the gospel. Our faith rests upon the person and work of Jesus Christ, which the propositions of the… Continue Reading
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 The first three chapters of 1 Corinthians debunks the importance of the modern crutch of “relevance.” Throughout this series, I have been arguing that Paul deliberately eschewed artificial props to make the gospel more attractive to unbelievers. Instead, he preached Christ and… Continue Reading
Tuesday I linked to an important article by Carl Trueman about the sufficiency of Scripture. I believe this article is so important that I’d like to highlight a few of his points here. Trueman makes an intriguing statement in his article: There is a sense in which we might say that Protestants believe in the insufficiency of… Continue Reading
Last week we discovered that the founders of the first church were characterized by united, fervent prayer. But prayer is not the only thing with which these founders of the first Church occupied their time, and Luke uses the event of choosing Judas’ replacement to highlight the second characteristic of these men. What was it that… Continue Reading
The authority of Scripture is of utmost importance to those of us who write here on the Religious Affections blog. The Bible regulates our doctrine, our practice, and even our love. We do not believe our love is arbitrary, to be expressed by our natural whim and fancy. We refuse to believe every theological concept… Continue Reading
“You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.” This command is universally understood to mean that God’s name is not to be used as a curse-word, or as a mere exclamation. And who would deny that? To use the very name of God to express irritation or surprise, to add… Continue Reading
Last week at the Annual Evangelical Theological Society meeting, the theme of the meeting was “Creation Care.” This is not a subject that I find particularly interesting, but in the final plenary session, Doug Moo made a point that was quite helpful and that applies to areas that I am certainly interested in. In the… Continue Reading
Last October I wrapped up my eight-part series on Biblical discernment (parts 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 and 8), and I thought I would now, in retrospect, add a brief postscript to that series simply demonstrating that my position is not novel. A couple years ago Scott Aniol introduced to me Matthew Henry’s book on prayer, A Method for Prayer. I strongly… Continue Reading
The religious scene of the country in which I minister is populated by mainline Protestant churches, some of whom place great emphasis on tradition. However, in many of these churches, the gospel itself is all but invisible, an assumed but unseen foundation of the house. The problem is, most of those in the house have… Continue Reading
I was pushed to write a series on discernment when I heard a famous evangelical pastor define discernment as the ability to see, allegedly by the Spirit of God, obscene things on a kind of imaginary “movie screen.”1 I also wanted to respond with sound exegesis to the opinions of some that any extra-biblical moral… Continue Reading
I have been arguing for the importance of discernment in the life of a Christian. I define discernment as a biblically informed judgment whether certain extra-biblical moral actions are good or evil. As we have seen there are an impressive testimony of Scripture to the importance of this biblical discipline: Phil 1:9-11 (Part 1), Rom… Continue Reading
An interesting online discussion has emerged in the past few weeks about the issue of not singing a particular song in a service when that song expresses sentiments you do not believe to be true. The discussion began with Roger Olson, who argued that we should not sing a song when the doctrine does not… Continue Reading
Discernment is a biblically informed judgment whether certain extra-biblical moral actions are good or evil. Last week, we looked at discernment in Eph 5:7-11 and pushed forward our argument that discernment is a crucial element of New Testament ethics. This argument is sound (and I am not the first to make it), and it is… Continue Reading
Once a pastor has it settled in his mind that sola Scriptura does not require him to ignore, dismiss or reject extra-biblical sources of knowledge, he may safely walk through God’s world and examine it, knowing that it is, indeed, his Father’s world. A pastor should become personally fascinated with meaning. How could it be… Continue Reading
We are beginning to see that discernment was a significant category for Paul. As an apostle, Paul was very much accustomed to giving the Lord Jesus Christ’s divine instruction to the church for doctrine, worship, and practice. But he was also very much aware that such instruction could in no way satisfy all the moral… Continue Reading
If pastors are to shepherd churches in which there is a desire to understand the meaning of the world and apply it to worship, obedience and ministry, some will need to adjust their understanding of their doctrine of Scripture (or their theories of applying Scripture). A strange paralysis has come over many evangelical pastors. They… Continue Reading