“Joy Comes in the Mourning”: How Jesus Wipes Away Tears
Do you know what it’s like to feel the sorrow of a bereaved mother? A mother’s life is wrapped up in the care and well being of her children. When those children are taken away from her or, worse, when they’re wantonly slaughtered before her eyes, it’s like ripping out her heart. She feels empty. She feels as if she no longer has any purpose for existence. Perhaps you’re experiencing that kind of grief. You’ve not been bereaved of your children, but you feel the same kind of empty sorrow. You feel hopeless and without purpose in the world. Read more 
Communication That Connects: Our Preaching, Bible Version, Confession, Branding, and Songs
In the previous installments of this series, I’ve addressed the importance, definition, and biblical support for accommodating our gospel communication to make it intelligible to the people we’re trying to reach.1 Below I’d like to highlight five different areas in which we should seek to apply this principle of accommodation to the way we communicate biblical truth in church ministry. Read more
Communication That Connects: God Accommodates and So Must We
Why should we endeavor to communicate gospel truth in a way that’s clear and intelligible to our target audience? Below I’d like to provide two biblical arguments to support the idea of contextualized communication. The first highlights God’s own manner of communicating to humans. The second underscores the biblical mandate that obligates us to follow our heavenly Father’s example.1 Read more
- Further support is offered in my series “Contextualization & Church Ministry.” [↩]
Contextualization & Church Ministry: Seven Ingredients
I would define biblical accommodation as a self-conscious and self-denying accommodation of the gospel messenger and the gospel message in biblically informed ways in order to enhance the gospel’s intelligibility and to remove any unnecessary obstacles that may prevent the target audience from hearing, understanding and/or receiving the gospel. Below I explain and expound the seven elements that make up this definition. Read more
Yes, We May Be Passionate: A Friendly Reply to James Renihan
Dr. James Renihan published on his blog an entry entitled, “Are You Passionate?” (June 3, 2008), which the reader may access here. The article was just republished (Jan 5, 3013) on the Reformed Baptist Fellowship blog here and today (Jan 8, 2013) on the Aquila Report here. Renihan begins the article with the remark, “Evangelical preachers and writers have become passionate about being passionate.” “We are urged,” he says, “to have a passion for God, to be passionate about winning souls, to be passionate in worship etc. ad nauseum.” Read more
The Baptist Confession on the Gospel
This chapter on “the gospel” is not found in the Westminster Confession. The Congregationalists added this chapter to the Savoy Declaration, and the Baptists incorporated it into their Confession. The Congregationalists call attention to this addition in their preface to the Savoy Declaration: Read more
The Covenant Context of the Fall, Part 6: Its Practical Ramifications
An appreciation of the covenantal context of the fall not only has important ramifications for our covenant theology; it also helps to preserve a biblical theology of sin and God’s redemptive work through Christ. Below are three practical implications from our study.
Rightly Rendering Ruach: The Semantic Range of רוח in the Old Testament
The Hebrew noun רוּחַ occurs 387 times in the Old Testament and is most commonly translated “spirit.” Whereas the English word “spirit” is limited to the immaterial aspect or psychical faculties of living beings, the Hebrew term may also refer to such natural phenomena as “wind” or “breath.” As the subject of transitive and intransitive verbs of motion, רוּחַ, in its most basic sense, refers either to the intangible cause or to the phenomenal effect of movement, animation, or empowerment. Read more
Beauty for Ashes: A Brief Theology of Isaiah
The book of Isaiah contains a theology of contrasts. Two sets of contrasts stand out in particular. The first set concerns the nature of God and man. God is absolutely holy; man is utterly sinful. These opposite realities become in turn the basis for the second set of contrasts, namely, judgment and salvation. These second two opposite themes prove to be complementary in the end—as judgment becomes the necessary prelude to salvation, and Zion receives “beauty for ashes” (61:3). Read more
Justification by Faith Alone: Paul versus James?
The apostle Paul teaches that sinners are justified by faith apart from works (Rom 3:20-21, 28; 4:6; Eph 2:8-9; Titus 3:5). That is, we receive God’s forgiveness by simply trusting in the crucified and risen Savior, Jesus Christ. This is what led Martin Luther to add the term “alone” (German: allein) in his translation of Romans 3:28: “Therefore, we conclude that a man is justified by faith alone without the deeds of the law.” But how do we reconcile Paul’s teaching with that of the apostle James who asserts, “You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone” (James 2:24)? Read more
