In short, disciples know each other. And so Matthew 18:15 might be happening all the time, perhaps weekly within loving relationships, in churches where there is no imminent danger of somebody being kicked out but rather where iron is constantly sharpening iron.

People will always hear what you haven’t said. Or they will hear the minor points and miss the major ones.

Faith is convicted trust, not vague belief. Faith is a placing of hopes in such a way that hope gets redefined. In the Scriptures, hope does not have the connotation of “I hope such and such will happen,” as if there is some chance it may not. No, in the Scriptures, hope is an assured trust. Our hope is Christ, and this hope will prove true; it

Your mission field and ministry circuit is not your territory to conquer, but your assigned place for prayer, sacrifice, and gospel proclamation. Not for your fame, but for God’s.

Here it is, a tremendous word of welcome, extended to Jew and Gentile alike, to come on in and worship, not in the holiest place of the human tabernacle, but into the Holy of Holies in heaven itself “by the blood of Jesus.” This, pastor, this! This is our theme, this is our song, this is our proclamation! This is our vision. This is what we welcome

Why, then, would Peter pick these moments, his moments of greatest infamy, as his grounds for qualification? Because he knows what Christ’s suffering purchased for him. Total forgiveness, total security, total justification. Peter brings to mind Christ’s death on the cross as the central point in his own pastoral vision and connects this vision to

His tone when referring to the Judaizers is angry; his tone in referring to the Galatians’ susceptibility is sadness. Galatians 4:18–20 is the most vivid example; you can practically hear his tears. Here is the bottom line, assuming Galatians is a good test case, and kept in the context of all that the Scriptures show us about dealing with false

The right response to the survey of this wearying battlefield is not timidity or a pity party, but clinging more desperately to the gospel of Jesus Christ. The justification for the sin-prone pastor—by which I mean simply the pastor—is the same as it is for every sinner. There is no Justification 2.0 for ministers of the gospel.

Pride is the original sin, the one in which all other sins take rotten root and fester. No one is immune to this sin; we are all infected from conception.