P. Andrew Sandlin

March 2012

  • Hatred for History

    For all the Athenians and strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or to hear, some new thing (Acts 17:21) . . . they soon forgot . . . (Psalm 106:13) Richard Weaver said in Ideas Have Consequences: “It has been well said that the chief trouble with… Continue reading

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  • After God’s Silence — What?

    by Oswald Chambers   “Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus. When He had heard therefore that he was sick, He abode two days still in the same place where He was.” John 11:5-6. Jesus stayed two days where He was without sending a word. We are apt to say—’I know why God… Continue reading

  • Two Gospel Heresies

    Salvation by works is heresy.  Salvation without works is heresy.  Both are damnable.  In the history of the Church the battle for the gospel has often centered on two extremes that eviscerate it.   They are equally damning. Moralism First, there is the heresy of moralism. This is the horridly humanistic idea that man can somehow… Continue reading

  • Theologies to be Skeptical About

    Christian systematic theologies abound today, and the themes around which one may orient any theology are legion: Protestant, Roman Catholic, Baptist, Pentecostal, feminist, dispensationalist, Afro-American, liberation, liturgical, evangelical, Marxist, Asian, Indian, and on and on.   On the basis of Biblical revelation, I thought it might be useful to list 10 traits of theology that should… Continue reading

  • Prophetic Preaching or Expository Preaching?

    Over the past thirty years or so, there has been a big emphasis on “expository” or “expositional” preaching. This is the practice of preaching straight through the Bible (or a portion of it) sequentially, exegeting a particular portion and expounding it. This surely is an acceptable way to preach, and it has a long history.… Continue reading

  • Toward a Catholic Calvinism

    I put myself on guard whenever I observe speakers and writers neatly classifying individuals into distinct, mutually exclusive, and seemingly airtight categories. One factor that makes individuals what they are is their own distinctiveness, a fact that renders most attempts at classification somewhat arbitrary. Nonetheless, the Bible itself classifies individuals again and again (saved and… Continue reading

  • Christianity as Empire

    And in the days of these kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed; and the kingdom shall not be left to other people; it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever. Daniel 2:44  If evangelical Christians are to have an… Continue reading

  • Man Without a Movement

    Dedicated to John M. Frame, who for four decades has successfully resisted the lure of movements What is a movement?   As I am defining it here, a movement is an informal association of individuals united by adherence to a particular ideology (a highly structured, generally comprehensive view of reality) dominated by one or more influential… Continue reading

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  • A Blogsphere Division of Labor

    My web articles dealing with distinctively cultural issues will continue to appear at the CCL site. The more theologically oriented posts will be here. Continue reading

  • Questions for The Calvinist International

    I was pleased to see that my old friend Peter Escalante (as gracious as he is bright) had joined Steven Wedgeworth (whom I’ve not yet have the privilege of meeting) in launching not simply a new web site, The Calvinist International, but also a new (or, rather, as will presently be seen, reviving a very… Continue reading

  • The Goodness and Severity of God in the New Testament

    Question: Hi Andrew, Once again, a superb sermon chock full of practical application. Thank you for bringing us the Word so faithfully each and every week. … [I]n light of today’s sermon (and amazingly the opening Psalm we read about the Israelites in the wilderness), I have a question. It pertains to God’s dealings with… Continue reading

  • Boil the Frog Slowly

    Most of us have heard the morality tale of the frog that leapt from the boiling pot when tossed in but allowed himself to be placed in a pot of cool water over a stove and boiled slowly to death.  Myth or not, it describes the pernicious deceptiveness of apostasy.  The unwary, foolish young man… Continue reading

  • Liberals Are Smarter Than Conservatives

    It’s remarkable that conservatives don’t understand how Genesis (creation) and John 3:16 (redemption) hang and fall together, because liberals understand it all too well.  In one of the most quoted liberal works of the first part of the 20th century, Harvard Professor of Church History Kirsopp Lake writes:  [T]he Fundamentalists are perfectly right in thinking… Continue reading

  • The Gauntlet Tossed to “The Grace Movement”

    It is perhaps surprising that an essay published by group with such a fully deserved reputation for vilifying other Christians as the Trinity Foundation should be so theologically on target, not to mention uncharacteristically judicious and charitable as Timothy F. Kauffman’s “Sanctification, Half Full: The Myopic Hermeneutic of the ‘Grace Movement.’” Can a leopard change his… Continue reading

  • Are We Really Bible-Believers? Synchronic versus Diachronic Theology

    In contemplating Christian theology, it’s vital to distinguish synchronic from diachronic theology. The Bible is not chiefly about theology (as in “systematic theology”), but about God’s revelation in history, centered in the Person of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.   However, the Bible does set forth theology (John’s account of Jesus’ teachings, Paul’s interpretation of… Continue reading

  • John R. W. Stott on Temperamental Versus Theological Conservatism

    We are conservative evangelicals. But let us make sure our conservatism is a theological conservatism and not a temperamental one…. We are conserving, preserving the unique revelation of God in Christ and in Scripture. But let us be clear that we are not conservative temperamentally, or in our prejudices, or in our lifestyles, or in… Continue reading

  • The False Teaching of “Transitioning” into Discipleship

    Not all false teachings in the church are properly classed as theological heresies, such that they would violate a specific doctrinal statement or confession of faith.  Some of the most pernicious false teachings, ordinarily more implied than explicated, can pass muster at the bar of almost any traditional confession of faith — and in fact… Continue reading

  • Spontaneous Obedience

    In his otherwise helpful essay defending the traditionally Reformed view of justification, Michael Horton writes, “The gospel of free justification gives rise to a spontaneous embrace of the very law that once condemned it” (105).  Horton is explicitly countering the argument that if one situates justification at the center of Pauline soteriology, he is hard… Continue reading