When Grace Meets Gender Confusion
The mental picture of this precious woman sobbing uncontrollably in a hospital bed after receiving the treatment she was convinced she wanted is one that will stay with me for a long time.
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The mental picture of this precious woman sobbing uncontrollably in a hospital bed after receiving the treatment she was convinced she wanted is one that will stay with me for a long time.
What would happen if you saw someone floating a few feet above the ground? I know what I would think: here is a skilled illusionist! I’d be happy since I love a good illusion, and especially sleight-of-hand card magic. I’ve seen enough convincing tricks to know that good illusions are powerful events. But what if you were convinced by sound reason and ample evidence that you were witnessing not an illusion but something all too real? In that case, my reaction would be of another kind altogether: a mix of wonder, confusion, and fear at the clear violation of the...
Near the end of his first letter to the Corinthian church, the apostle Paul summarizes what he deems to be “of first importance”: “that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to [numerous people whom Paul names in 1 Cor 15:5–8]” (1 Cor 15:3-5). In this passage, we find four key words about Christ: He died, was buried, was raised, and appeared. This is the gospel in a nutshell—and a great sermon or Bible study outline!...
I’m grateful to be living in a time when “theological retrieval” is a common topic in Christian discussion, when historical theology is considered cool by the bible college students I meet, and when evangelical pastors openly read and quote the early church fathers. Yet I’m less enthused by the way Baptists seem to fit into this growing conversation. In recent years, it feels like hardly a week passes without a Baptist pastor announcing he has become Presbyterian, a Baptist scholar explaining on Substack he has become Anglican, or a young Baptist layperson uploading a 2-hour documentary chronicling their journey into...
Sometimes Christians forget how ancient Christianity is. Sure, we all know that Jesus lived, died, and rose again 2,000 years ago, but we forget that for the past 2,000 years there have been Christians worshipping Jesus, thinking about Jesus, living for Jesus, dying for Jesus, and writing about Jesus. The world of the earliest Christians is distant and foreign to us living so much later, but it is a world worth exploring! I would recommend On the Apostolic Preaching by Irenaeus of Lyons as a good starting point. There is a good modern translation of On the Apostolic Preaching in...
