The very first full memory I have of someone preaching the message of salvation to me is when I was six years old. It wasn’t at a church. Or a revival. Or a kids camp. It was in the passenger seat of a car driving down Highway 60 in western Kentucky. The evangelist wasn’t a Reverend. Or a Pastor. Or even a Brother. It was my Grandmother D. And it ... Continue Reading
3 Questions for the Persecuted
By 1521, German revolutionaries led by a knight named Ulrich von Hutten were attempting to align themselves with Martin Luther’s Reformation of the Church. When Luther learned of Hutten’s threats of violence against the Pope, he responded to the nationalist leader with a lesson in spiritual warfare: “You see what Hutten asks. I am not willing to ... Continue Reading
Martin Luther’s Gift to Pastors
At the conclusion of Luther on the Christian Life (2015), church historian Carl Trueman recollects being interviewed for his first tenured appointment at a university. He was asked by one of the interviewers, “If you were trapped on a desert island, who would you want with you – Luther or Calvin?” Trueman chose Luther. And later that day he was ... Continue Reading
Reformation is Recovery
Renowned church historian Jaroslav Pelikan once boasted that Martin Luther “was more Catholic than many of his Roman Catholic opponents.” He was, after all, a Reformer. Luther believed in the one, holy, catholic, apostolic church. However, he also believed that it had strayed from its first love. Luther’s fiery rhetoric, though incendiary and often ... Continue Reading
Fellow Heirs
When Scripture presents the miracle of adoption, one word is almost always present: heir. To be adopted into the family of God is to be an heir of God. Paul reminds the Galatians, “And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’ So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir ... Continue Reading
The Sweet Tea of Marriage
During my senior year of college I waited tables at Texas Roadhouse just a mile down the road from the University of Kentucky. And while I wasn’t the world’s best waiter, my tips were fairly consistent because I faithfully abided by one of the most basic laws of waiting tables: keep the refills coming. More often than not, I was filling sweet tea, ... Continue Reading
Jesus Lived For You
And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. –Philippians 2:8 In the 11th century, a Benedictine monk named Anselm penned one of the greatest Christian classics in the history of the church entitled Cur Deus Homo, translated “Why the God-Man?” In it he offered what has ... Continue Reading
Marriage is a Call to Suffer for the Gospel
Every wedding is both a promise and a guarantee. The promise of marital faithfulness made between husband and wife is grounded in a greater, everlasting promise made by Christ to His church, sealed in blood and kept for eternity. (Eph. 5:22-33) The guarantee, on the other hand, isn’t grounded in anything more than human nature: the guarantee of ... Continue Reading
The Father of Lies
Like the Son of God, Satan goes by many names in holy Scripture: Lucifer, Beelzebub, the tempter, the serpent, the dragon, the accuser, etc. One of the most notable is actually a name given to him by Christ in John 8:44: “he is a liar and the father of lies.” Jesus explains that when Satan lies, “he speaks out of his own character.” Therefore, just ... Continue Reading
Nazis and Pharisees
In today’s postmodern culture, it seems the only evil left to judge is the evil that judges. When truth and morality are completely subjective, anyone willing to hold others to any kind of norm is labeled a “bigot” or perhaps even worse. And this isn’t simply a secular problem. In an American church eager to divest itself from any kind of doctrinal ... Continue Reading