The phrase, “union with Christ,” has enjoyed a recent resurgence of interest. This important element of Scripture was something that I only came to understand in part within the last ten years of being a Christian. Until recently, it never really struck me how important...
Category: God
We tend to imagine God as the “Big Man Upstairs.” He is someone like us, only bigger, smarter, and more powerful. Yet, God is in a class all by himself. In the God of Scripture we find a Lord who is all-powerful and supremely good! This is good...
Talk of sin and grace is out of style. Now, before we attack the culture, secularism, or those other Christians who are not part of our tribe, it’s important to ask two questions: Do I believe in sin and grace as a reality? Do I...
Have you ever wondered why Jesus had to die on a cross for people’s sins? After all, if God is loving, why couldn’t he just forgive everyone instead of putting his Son through all that suffering to make atonement for sin? We find the answer to...
Let’s face it. The Bible is a big book with lots of strange stories and images. It is sometimes difficult to know what anyone should take away from it. The underlying logic seems to escape us. To those on the outside, it seems Christians just pick...
Things are not always what they seem. This is especially true about the way God works in the world. It seems wise to assume that I’ll get out no less—hopefully more—than what I put in, that being either rich or poor is a direct result of hard work or laziness....
Chances are, at least one of your friends or family members doesn’t believe that Jesus was raised from the dead. Here are some suggestions for communicating the most central Christian claim to others—and not only at Easter dinner! 1. The gospel’s effects are deep and wide, so...
In answering this question, it’s helpful for us to return to the “facts of the case.” Here, speculation is useless. It does not matter what we thought reality was like: whether we believed in thirty gods or none. It doesn’t matter what we find helpful,...
Since the one God is three persons—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—God did not need to create us. Still, God had a purpose when he created you and me and took good pleasure in his creation (Gen. 1:31). Here are four purposes for...
God loves to share things with us—life, breath, all of creation—but there are some things that only he has because he is God. We sometimes imagine that God is just like us, only bigger, smarter, and more powerful. God, however, is not just more than we...