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With the so-called “fiscal cliff” legislation still in the balance, we have been hearing from many quarters lately (even from Germany) that government in Washington has become “dysfunctional”: “What did we elect those good-for-nothing inside-the-beltway loafers for: to get something done!” But many times the best part of getting something done is getting nothing done.… Continue reading

But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. Galatians 4:4-5 What is the origin of the Christmas holiday (Holy Day)?  Jesus’ birthday is obviously not… Continue reading

“You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.” So stated Rham Emmanuel, now mayor of Chicago, and then President Obama’s Chief of Staff. He was pinpointing legislation to expand the federal government’s control over… Continue reading

 Now as he [Paul] thus made his defense, Festus said with a loud voice, “Paul, you are beside yourself! Much learning is driving you mad!” Acts 26:24 To my fellow Christians: would any unbeliever ever have warrant to accuse our vast learning of driving us mad?  If not, why not? Our times are marked by… Continue reading

Leftism since the French Revolution has engaged in one big emancipation project, what Kenneth Minogue terms in his always insightful, sometimes dazzling, The Servile Mind: How Democracy Erodes the Moral Life, “the oppression-liberation nexus.” The Leftist religion has become one of clawing for the liberation of humanity from every tyranny — real or imagined: the… Continue reading

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

We hear the term “Cross-centered” a lot these days.  It is an understandable expression. In a time when our Lord’s precious death (1 Pet. 1:18–19) is termed “cosmic child abuse” by alleged evangelicals, we could use a revival of love for and preaching about our Lord’s sacrificial death on the Cross.  But some churches and… Continue reading

Based on a talk delivered to the annual conference of the Center for Cultural Leadership in San Francisco, California, November 7, 2009    Scripture is God’s scepter … the instrument of his government. J. I. Packer[1] We read in Psalm 119:105 that God’s Word is a lamp to our feet and a light to our… Continue reading

Introductory remarks at the political symposium sponsored by the Center for Cultural Leadership in Saratoga, California, October 27, 2012  I want to start with a quote from Bill Clinton at the Democratic National Convention this past August: This Republican narrative — this alternative universe … says that every one of us in this room who amounts to… Continue reading

In “Beware of Under-Realized Soteriologies,” I took to task Mark Galli of Christianity Today and others for arguing that we shouldn’t expect to be transformed too much by the Gospel in this pre-consumate age, since most Gospel transformation awaits the eschaton. Gerald Heistand of The Society for the Advancement of Ecclesial Theology argues, from another angle,… Continue reading

The great division within humanity is not sexual, economic, racial, or social — but religious.  The great divide is captured by expressions like the City of God versus the City of Man (Augustine), covenant-keepers versus covenant-breakers (Cornelius Van Til), and by more explicitly Biblical terms like saved versus unsaved (Ac. 16:30) and Christians versus non-Christians… Continue reading

And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart . . .  Deuteronomy 6:6 Few Biblical words are more frequently mis-defined and misunderstood in the modern church than the word heart.  It is usually understood as emotion. When evangelical ministers declare, “We believe in heart-felt religion at this church,” what… Continue reading

So here is the problem. Man is a guilty sinner, God is a holy God. How can the two be brought together? The answer is the cross of Christ. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, The Cross[1]    “God was in Christ,” writes Paul to the church at Corinth, “reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing [counting] their trespasses… Continue reading

In The Courage to be Protestant, David Wells observes that (post)modern “post-conservative” evangelicals (like Roger Olsen) really aren’t that different theologically from the old Protestant liberals (also called “modernists” at the time).  In an extended CCL interview published in “Christian Culture,” I posed this question to John M. Frame, and his answer, in essence, is… Continue reading

“Patriarchy” means, “father rule.”  The concept of father necessitates a child or children (“father” is not equivalent to “husband”), so the word patriarchy might be thought to imply that the father as father bears unique and final human authority in the family.  If so, this assumption is false.  From the Biblical teaching that the faithful… Continue reading

Excerpt from Evangelizing the Mind: The gospel presupposes a worldview. The fact that this idea sounds unsettling to us shows how far we’ve come from the Bible’s teaching.  A worldview is a way of viewing the world.  It’s a set of assumptions that everybody has by which we interpret what goes on around us and… Continue reading

“Liberty has not subsisted outside of Christianity” Lord Acton The most liberating political force in the history of mankind has been Christianity (Jn. 8:36). Christianity branched from the trunk of godly Old Testament Hebrew religion, and the ancient Hebrew commonwealth (before the era of the kings [1 Sam. 8]) was arguably the most libertarian society… Continue reading

Excerpted from a lecture scheduled to be delivered at Trinity Evangelical Church, Pratt, Kansas, Sunday, September 30 Today we live in a radically secular culture.  Secularization does not mean that people no longer believe in God.  It means that people no longer believe that God has any interest in culture. “[T]he process of secularization,” states… Continue reading

I promised Uri Brito, a friend, pastor and zealot for Jesus Christ that I’d respond to his irenic post on political strategy. I told Uri’s fine congregation last May that if I lived in Pensacola, I’d attend his church just to hear (and watch) him sing.  What a rare and gifted man of God. Uri… Continue reading

  Since I’ve lamented the emergence of “The Grace Boys” and criticized the antinomian leanings of some younger evangelicals like Tullian Tchividjian (Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church) and Mark Galli (Christianity Today), it’s with a great sense of relief and gratification that I’ve encountered Kevin DeYoung’s The Hole in Our Holiness: Filling the Gap Between Gospel Passion and the… Continue reading