When we meet God in the gospel, we first encounter him as a stranger, come to rescue us from a danger we did not even realize we were in.

Monastic spirituality concentrated on private disciplines, as if detaching oneself from “the world” (i.e. society) might make one holier. Anabaptist piety was similar in that regard. However, Calvin thought of sanctification as a family affair....

An implication of God’s independence from the world is that he is who he is eternally and will always be. All of God’s acts are consistent with his nature. God determines the world’s course; the...

Only when we start with the gospel — the most controversial point of Christian faith — are we ready to talk about who God is and how we know him.

If we think the main mission of the church is to improve life in Adam and add a little moral strength to this fading evil age, we have not yet understood the radical condition for...

In him we live and move and have our being” (Ac 17:28), so even our ability to think, will, and act is dependent on God’s sovereign gift.

We do not read the Bible somewhere off by ourselves in a corner; we read it as a community of faith, together with the whole church in all times and places.

Regardless of the official theology held on paper, moralistic preaching (the bane of conservatives and liberals alike) assumes that we are not really helpless sinners who need to be rescued but decent folks who need...

alternative Christianity” have far fewer manuscripts, and the original writings cannot be dated any earlier than a century after the canonical Gospels.

big story” that traces the plot of history from creation to consummation, with Christ as its Alpha and Omega, beginning and end. And out of the throbbing verbs of this unfolding drama God reveals stable...

Jesus was not revolutionary because he said we should love God and each other. Moses said that first. So did Buddha, Confucius, and countless other religious leaders we’ve never heard of. Madonna, Oprah, Dr. Phil,...

God did not become flesh and suffer an ignominious death at our hands so that we could have sprawling church campuses, programs, and budgets.

spiritual but not religious,” they are asking for the law without the gospel.

The object is evident in the name of the discipline. Similarly, theology (theologia) is the study of God. The object of theology is not the church’s teaching or the experience of pious souls. It is...

are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Ro 3:24).

If the focus of our testimony is our changed life, we as well as our hearers are bound to be disappointed.

True faith calls on the name of Jesus for salvation from death, hell, sin, and Satan. Therefore, sound theology has its source in a founding drama with its revealed doctrines. Through the drama and the...

The gospel of submission, commitment, decision, and victorious living is not good news about what God has achieved but a demand to save ourselves with God’s help. Besides the fact that Scripture never refers to...

The gospel isn’t just enough to justify the ungodly; it’s enough to regenerate and sanctify the ungodly. However, only because (in the narrower sense) the good news announces our justification are we for the first...

The gospel is unintelligible to most people today, especially in the West, because their own particular stories are remote from the story of creation, fall, redemption, and consummation that is narrated in the Bible. Our...

under the law” in the first sense. They are justified. However, they are still obligated to the law, both as it is stipulated and enforced by the state (second use) and as it frames Christian...

When the focus becomes ‘What would Jesus do?’ instead of ‘What has Jesus done?’ the [conservative/liberal] labels no longer matter.

our God is above us, before us, and within us.” The doctrine of the Trinity — God as one in essence and three in person — shapes and structures Christian faith and practice in every...

In American religion, as in ancient Gnosticism, there is almost no sense of God’s difference from us—in other words, his majesty, sovereignty, self-existence, and holiness. God is my buddy, my inmost experience, or the power...

folly to Gentiles” (1Co 1:23) not only because of its message (namely, a crucified Messiah crowned King of kings in his bodily resurrection as the beginning of the new creation) but because of its very...

Faith is tested throughout our lives (James 1:3; I Peter 1:7). As the object of our faith proves Himself faithful throughout these trials, our faith grows. Even if we do not have God’s personal revelation...

The authority of the Scriptures does not depend on the decision of the church or the individual to validate it. To paraphrase the Westminster Confession, we receive it as the word of God because of...

The greatest threat to Christ-centered witness even in churches that formally affirm sound teaching is what British evangelical David Gibson calls ‘the assumed gospel.’ The idea is that the gospel is necessary for getting saved,...

And even though the resurrection of Jesus, by itself, is meaningless apart from the unfolding biblical drama that begins with creation and leads to the consummation, nevertheless, by beginning with this unique event in history,...

If we fail to recognize there is a unified whole to Scripture, we will have only a pile of pieces. Simplistic slogans, formulas and catchphrases will not suffice in conveying the richness of the Scriptures.

If the eternal Son could become fully human without sin (Heb 4:15), then surely God can communicate his truth through thoroughly human ambassadors while preserving their writings from error.

Secularization—that is, the gradual conformity of our thinking, beliefs, commitments, and practices to the pattern of this fading age—is not just something that happens to the church; it is something that happens in the church....

I just love Jesus,” some say. But who is Jesus? And why do you love him?

I expect that Calvin would evaluate our worship today not as too emotional, but as too narrow in its emotional repertoire.

Throughout God’s acts revealed in history, from creation to the exodus to the exile to redemption and on into the consummation, we discern a clear pattern: every good gift comes from the Father, in the...

Whether you realize it or not, you are a theologian. You come to a book like this with a working theology, an existing understanding of God. Whether you are an agnostic or a fundamentalist —...

God’s downward descent to us in grace reversed by our upward ascent in pragmatic enthusiasm, we are increasingly becoming a sheep without a Shepherd—and all in the name of mission. Instead of churching the unchurched,...

Timothys,” no longer adding to the apostolic deposit, but guarding and proclaiming it (1Ti 6:20). The apostolic era has now come to an end; the office was a unique one, for a unique stage of...