Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob--three very human patriarchs who each spoke directly with God and whose prayers and altars are recorded in...

Jacob deserves a bit of grace for being the one of two sons who had a heart for God, despite all his flaws. It is easy to exaggerate his...

Twenty years had passed since the day Jacob set foot in Paddan-Aram with nothing more than his shepherd's staff. At least seven of those...

Have you noticed these days how faith--the very means of our salvation,  upon which Luther's Protestant Reformation was built--is often casually dropped from the process of salvation? The omission, we find, is intentional.  It is also contradictory.  Those who preach that we are saved by grace alone  and who leave out "through faith”  seem afraid we will discover that there is, after all, a condition of salvation.  If there is a condition to salvation, then free will is invo

Is faith a work? Of course not, most self-respecting, healthy people will answer. Why would you ask that? Thank you. I agree. Is faith a gift? Well, now, that's a tough one. I always thought faith was the single proof of righteousness, my required response to grace, so I guess not. But then, again, didn't the disciples ask the Lord to increase their faith? And didn't the father of a suffering boy ask the Lord to help his unbelief? Now you've got me all confused. I

"All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name" If you can relate to the days of hymnals, you might have opened one in which "All Hail the Power of...

Can you imagine polling people on the street and asking them if they have sinned today? If they don't attack you first, chances are, the ones who say "yes" will claim to be Christians. In fact, I have frequently heard Christians say that they sin every day. What do they mean? Is this a transparent and humble confession of sin, or is it a boastful and entitled profession of sin? Of course, this is an extremely broad topic, and truth gets lost in the complexity. We mig

Introduction: Too often we hear preachers today thunder out the message--that is, if they preach with authority at all--that salvation is by grace alone , misquoting Ephesians 2:8-9 with no qualms. But I always want to shout back, "What have you done with 'through faith ?'" Yes, what have they done with it? And, even when they do include "through faith," what have they done with faith ? Like so many things these days, salvation, grace , and faith don't mean what the

What is the Spirit of our Age? We live in a day of lawlessness that has been allowed to redefine true salvation.  The spirit of the age has infected the gospel with antinomianism, cleverly disguising it as “grace.”  It has also mislabeled obedience as "legalism," going even so far as to call faith and repentance "works." But obedience has no more to do with legalism than antinomianism has to do with grace. In order to return to a Biblical view of salvation, we must expose

Aristotle's Rhetorical Triangle Introduction: The most disheartening thing about trying to have a constructive conversation these days...