The author tells a story wherein a missionary friend of his was invited by unbelievers on a train ride to play cards. The friend declined, saying that he did not bring his hands with him. He explained to the astonished group that the hands attached t...
The gospel isn’t just enough to justify the ungodly; it’s enough to regenerate and sanctify the ungodly. However, only because (in the narrower sense) the good news announces our justification are we for the first time free to embrace God as our ...
As Paul argues, it is the righteousness of God that is revealed in the law, and this condemns us all (Ro 1:18 – 3:20), while the gospel reveals the righteousness from God, namely, that we “are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redempt...
As we discussed earlier, the gospel is “folly to Gentiles” (1Co 1:23) not only because of its message (namely, a crucified Messiah crowned King of kings in his bodily resurrection as the beginning of the new creation) but because of its very form...
Scattered across the Roman Empire, it was only natural for the gospel writers to distance themselves from the Jewish independence movement by erasing, as much as possible, any hint of radicalism or violence, revolution or zealotry, from the story of ...
Everything hinges on the Christ of the cross. The fact of the cross is the axiom of theological thought. It is impossible to think about the gospel if we have the slightest hesitation on this point. We must determine to carry this theme throughout al...
The people who really thirst for life, who stand daily on the brink of every kind of death, who struggle desperately to distinguish some light in the seated mystery of human existence— these are the people to whom the Gospel of salvation is primari...
The incarnation took all that properly belongs to our humanity and delivered it back to us, redeemed. All of our inclinations and appetites and capacities and yearnings are purified and gathered up and glorified by Christ. He did not come to thin out...
sexuality isn’t ancillary to Christianity, in the way some other cultural or political issues are. Marriage and sex point, the Bible says, to a picture of the gospel itself, the union of Christ and his church. This is why the Bible spends so much t...
O prejudice, prejudice, prejudice, how many hast thou destroyed! Men who might have been wise have remained fools because they thought they were wise. Many judge what the gospel ought to be, but do not actually enquire as to what it is. They do not c...
Today I don't drive up to the world's religions and say yes I'd like a number 4 Buddhism with a side of Hindi, and two extra servings of New Age and a little bit of Islam sprinkled on top. And a number 11 Prosperity gospel from the desert menu. No, I...
So very offensive the gospel is, and of course, it's pointing out where I was so sure of being right but in fact was so very wrong! At first I turned so hard against it, but now I find myself so in love with it's blunt honest truth. We need more of t...
In his sermon on the baptism of the Spirit, Chamberlain points out Peter's focus in Acts 2. The amazing work of enabling the apostles to speak languages in which they had not been trained drew the attention of the crowd so Peter could address them. N...
Let's think of that moment when a woman washed the feet of Jesus with the nard, so expensive: it is a religious moment, a moment of gratitude, a moment of love. And he [Judas] stands apart with bitter criticism: 'But this could have been used for the...
The Lord teaches us of His grace and the Gospel through difficult children. We learn what it's like to love like He loved. It is there, in our personal upper room, where we learn to wash the feet of those that are betraying us. It is there, kneeling ...
Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice should create in the discerning male reader a deeply rooted concupiscence for Elizabeth Bennet that springs not from her vivacity or from her wit but from her unerring instinct to follow the deeply moral directives...
I would sooner have the approval of my own conscience and know that I had done my duty than to have the praise of all the world and not have the approval of my own conscience. A man's own conscience, when he is living as he should live, is the finest...
My work with teenagers has convinced me that one of the main reasons teenagers are not excited by the gospel is that they do not think they need it. Many parents have successfully raised self-righteous little Pharisees. When they look at themselves, ...
I take literally the statement in the Gospel of John that God loves the world. I believe that the world was created and approved by love, that it subsists, coheres, and endures by love, and that, insofar as it is redeemable, it can be redeemed only b...
When it comes to biblical counseling, friendship is central to the counseling relationship because it is a key aspect of the Gospel. Paul's words display it; Jesus' actions approve it. In Jesus Christ, friendship has its ultimate – that is, it's pa...
You have come nearer to mastering a good many aspects of cooking than anyone except a handful of great chefs, and some day it will pay off. I know it will. You will just have to go on working, and teaching, and getting around, and spreading the gospe...
