Tag: grace
Why the World Still Needs the Church
The critics are right; the church is broken. Nowhere is this reality more apparent than in disputes about what the Bride of Christ actually is. An institution or a relationship? A means for spirituality or...
Do We Really Want to Be Saved?
Do we actually even want to be saved, in the sense of being freed from the dominion of sin? – Marguerite Shuster, professor at Fuller Seminary, in a 2015 Christianity Today story. It is a...
On Repentance: What Is Our Assurance in Repentance?
We’ve looked at three questions about repentance so far: 1) Why repent? 2) What is repentance? and 3) How do we repent? We would do well to look at one further aspect of repentance, one...
On Repentance: How Do We Repent?
So far in this series, we’ve looked at two questions about repentance: 1) Why repent? and 2) What is repentance? There are still two other questions we want to examine related to repentance: 3) How...
On Repentance: What Is Repentance?
In this series, we’re looking at four questions about repentance: 1) Why repent? 2) What is repentance? 3) How do we repent? And 4) what is our assurance in repentance? We’re centering around 1 John...
On Repentance: Why Do We Repent?
The blessing of repentance is central to the message of the gospel and the Christian life. It’s not always popular or fun, but it’s hugely important. We love to jump to, “There is no condemnation...
Why I’m a Christian, despite Christians
Have you ever been at a party where your friend says something really stupid? What was that? you think. Please repeat. But you regret this thought, because, yes, he really did say something that insensitive or ignorant or...
“For I Know the Plans I Have for You…” Are We Misrepresenting Jeremiah 29:11?
Jeremiah 29:11 is recited all the time, and for good reason. ‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give...
Dancing lessons from Pope Francis
On Monday, on a flight from Rio de Janeiro back to Rome, Pope Francis talked with reporters for over an hour. At one point, he was asked about the “gay lobby” in the Vatican and...
Reveling and Wrestling Through ‘The Heart of Man’
It’s a docu-drama that wraps a handful of deeply personal interviews around a sincerely affecting retelling of the story of the prodigal son. Watching the movie on a whim, without any prior context, I was...