It’s not just that this technology allows us to stay “plugged in” all the time, it’s that it gives us the sense that we are tapped into something greater than ourselves. The narratives of meaning that have always filled our lives with justification and wonder are multiplied endlessly and immediately for us in songs, TV... Continue Reading

While Weinandy’s Roman Catholicism is evident in his treatment of the Lord’s Supper, this is a book that Protestants will otherwise find most helpful. I for one will never be able to preach the gospel narrative in quite the same way again.     The first is Thomas Weinandy’s Jesus Becoming Jesus.  Weinandy is a Franciscantheologian who is well-known in orthodox Protestant circles for his... Continue Reading

Idolatry ultimately is about our conception of who God is. If people have a significantly wrong conception of who God is, then they commit themselves to a false and distorted conception of God and thus a false God. This becomes tantamount to idolatry. This is why God’s people must know his word. Only by knowing... Continue Reading

My next project—tentatively titled From the Ends of the Earth: How the Majority World Is Reshaping American Evangelicalism—seeks to expand this narrative to other geographies and sectors of evangelicalism. It will chart how evangelicals abroad and American missionaries “spoke back” to American evangelicals on matters of race, imperialism, mission strategy, economics, sexuality, and theology.   This... Continue Reading

We are formed by the hymns and songs we sing. We are (perhaps more than we realize) formed, too, by the tangible objects of our faith. We are people of the book—not just people of the Word of God, but also people who have been corporately, theologically, devotionally, and socially formed by hymnbooks.   When... Continue Reading

The last chapter contains a story that illustrates the value of the Apostles’ Creed. In the Introduction I describe the Creed as liturgical (to profess in community), catechetical (to teach), confessional (to express alignment), and missional (as a light to life in Christ). The story at book’s end shows the missional value.   Whether it’s... Continue Reading

I didn’t yet understand the key differences between “teaching counseling” and “doing counseling.” Honestly, it felt hypocritical to say there might be substantive differences between the two. When I read David Powlison’s quote in How Does Sanctification Work? I finally had words for the tension I had been learning to navigate.   This is a blog series... Continue Reading

In contrast to the shrill and irrational ranting of several of the recent works written by the new atheists, Lennox deals with the subject calmly and rationally, dismantling point by point their often absurd assertions. This is one of those books that comes around every so often that you not only need to read but... Continue Reading

Martin Luther famously wrote crux sola est nostra theologica. Very often, we think of Luther’s theology of the cross primarily in terms of soteriology. However, a grieving person will struggle to find a more useful, simple, and redemptive theological foundation than the cross alone in times of suffering. The cross clearly answers the three pivotal, existential questions... Continue Reading

“If a piece of literature asserts that it is the very word of the Supreme Being in the universe, it should have characteristics which resemble an all-wise, omniscient, impeccable being. When we come to the Qur’an, however, it struggles to live up to its divine claim.”   Years ago I had a friend come visit... Continue Reading