christianity

And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God. [Philippians 1:9–11]

Individualism goes back to the Judeo-Christian heritage, all the way back to Psalm 23 and God’s tender care for me. When the Good Shepherd loves me, I have dignity and worth. I have value as an individual. But modern secularism has taken the Shepherd out of Psalm 23, leaving just me trying to create my own dignity and worth. It is my money; I

The gospel is not the story of Christ loving a pure bride who loves him; it’s the story of his love for a whore who thinks he has nothing to offer and keeps giving herself to others.

Despite our shortcomings as fathers, or the sins that our sons might willingly walk into along the way, we can pray for our sons even as the apostle Paul prayed for his children in Christ, the Philippians.

I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from

The reason that marriage is so painful and yet wonderful is because it is a reflection of the gospel, which is painful and wonderful at once. The gospel is this: We are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe, yet at the very same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope.

This summary gives a glimpse of the divine power working through the apostles. People are being healed. Outsiders are impressed. People believe. Apparently, the prospect of arrest also keeps some believers from joining the apostles. Nevertheless, the bold apostles engage publicly in their ministry of service to those in need and gain respect and

But this is Christological error, if not outright heresy. The Son of God clothed himself with humanity and will never unclothe himself. He became a man and always will be. This is the significance of the doctrine of Christ’s ascension: he went into heaven with the very body, reflecting his full humanity, that was raised out of the tomb. He is and

One of the hallmarks of this reality is that the Bible as a sacred text lay at the heart of the sixteenth-century church reforms for both sides of the Reformation debate. Further, history as an authoritative source of wisdom plays a significant role for both Catholics and Protestants in the sixteenth century. The Reformers themselves constantly

If we truly want to follow God we must seek to be other-worldly. This I say knowing well that that word has been used with scorn by the sons of this world and applied to the Christian as a badge of reproach. So be it. Every man must choose his world. If we who follow Christ, with all the facts before us and knowing what we are about, deliberately