I will build my church… It is not a good idea to seek a comprehensive understanding of the nature and mission of the church by examining only one or two passages of Scripture. The story of the church begins long ago with God’s covenant of grace in which he promised to make from the childless […]

In the day of my trouble, I seek the Lord… The Bible is remarkably honest about the troubles and sorrows we will face in this life. That Christians should expect to avoid or somehow rise above suffering and sadness is the promise of false teachers. It is understandable why such empty promises have always found […]

The opening chapters of Genesis are not meant to be a beginner’s introduction to physics or a guide for understanding biology. The creation account is not written in contemporary scientific terminology. It does not seek to answer questions that may be raised about the composition of cells or the average life-span of medium sized stars. […]

The Bible’s creation account is remarkably brief and spare of details. Its purpose is not to present an exhaustive account of the making of the cosmos. Such an account would be massive and beyond our ability to fully comprehend. Therefore, we should not expect to have all of our questions answered about “the how” of […]

The most important questions to ask when reading any portion of the Bible are 1) What does this reveal about God? 2) What does this reveal about God’s redemptive purpose in Jesus? 3) How are we to respond? These are the central questions whether we are reading the Psalms, Matthew, Philippians, or Genesis. The Westminster […]

The fantastic visions the Apostle John describes in Revelation 15 and throughout the whole book are meant to be profoundly practical and impactful to God’s beloved people. We are given pictures meant to assure us of God’s present reign from heaven and his authority to use every circumstance throughout all of time in order to […]

The Apostle Paul was a man of great learning. He had an elite education. He was, by any reasonable standard, an effective writer. While in Athens, the crown jewel of Greece and Greek culture, Paul followed his typical pattern of proclaiming Christ in the synagogue among his fellow Jews. From there he expanded his witness […]

There is none like you, O LORD;          you are great, and your name is great in might. (Jeremiah 10:6) What we believe about God matters more than we can probably imagine. God did not give us an enormous book of Divinely inspired Scripture so that we could conclude that theology is not all […]

Go on up to a high mountain,          O Zion, herald of good news;      lift up your voice with strength,          O Jerusalem, herald of good news;        lift it up, fear not;          say to the cities of Judah,      “Behold your God!”      (Isaiah 40:9) In the fifth […]

In the beginning God… The first words of the Bible are strategic. They establish two fundamental truths required in order to rightly understand all of life: 1) There is one God and 2) I am not Him. As to the first point, Genesis proceeds on the foundation that God is. Secondly, God is referred to […]