— Writings —

If you had to summarize the gospel in just one word, what would it be? The question is a tough one. Justification? Redemption? Perhaps the best answer would be “Christ,” as long as we understand that His person and work are both included, and it is His work in...

One of the most common issues I have dealt with in pastoral counseling, especially during my years on the mission field where many were coming to faith, is believers who struggle with doubts concerning their salvation. We know that salvation is God’s gift to us by...

Introduction The practical and experiential holiness of the people of the God is a subject that is most neglected in our day, but most emphasized in Scripture. It is the goal of the Father’s electing love, to the praise of his glorious grace (Rom. 8:29; Eph. 1:4). It...

The identity of the ἐγὼ in Romans 7 has been a topic of much debate through the centuries. That debate still rages today. It is not hard to see why, since even Peter admits that Paul writes “some things hard to be understood” (2 Pet. 3:16). One wonders if Peter did...

Matthew 5:17–19 17 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. 18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. 19...

Background and Contextual Considerations The apostle Paul wrote to the Romans toward the end of his third missionary journey, probably from Corinth.[1] It was just prior to his visit to Jerusalem to deliver the large monetary gift from the Gentile churches as a...

What did the Lord Jesus Christ teach about marriage, divorce, and re-marriage? This post is a sermon on a foundational passage in the Gospel of Mark about this topic. Mark 10:1–12 says, 1 And he arose from thence, and cometh into the coasts of Judaea by the farther...

The doctrine of the eternal generation of the Son (EGS) has fallen on tough times in evangelical and Reformed circles. Though an indispensable component of classical Christian theism as confessed in the Nicene Creed, much of modern scholarship has dispensed with it in...

What is the place of suffering in our theology of mission? Does suffering play any vital or necessary role in the advancement of the missionary endeavor as sovereignly determined by the purposes of God? Or is suffering merely a vocationally-occasioned circumstance...

If God undergoes emotional changes, then does He experience time? Is He then acted upon by creatures and subject to what transpires in the creaturely realm? Is His Being composed of metaphysical complexity? Consider the relationship between God's impassibility and...

An Exegesis of John 3:1–10 with a View to its Testimony Regarding the Agency of the New Birth  The hinge upon which the door of salvation-by-sovereign-grace turns is the doctrine of the new birth conceived as a supernatural accomplishment initiated and performed by...

Biblicism is alive and well today. It takes different forms and is practiced to varying degrees. Some see this as a good thing; others, as the bane of simplistic evangelical anti-intellectualism. Some believe it to be mandated by the Bible itself; others attribute it...

Our society’s understanding of what it means to be a person is changing at the fundamental level. In recent decades, the question of what makes a person a person has been raised. Who decides what constitutes personhood? And on what basis? Take, for example, the...

It is a well-known fact that “one of the most common charges raised against Calvinism as a theological perspective is that it is not conducive to fueling a long-term passion for missions and evangelism,” as Joel Beeke has observed.[1] But after a survey of John...

Admirers of John Calvin (1509–1564) who have not read his magisterial Institutes are often surprised when they hear that he argues for a weekly observance of the Lord’s Supper, especially considering that a majority of churches today that trace their roots to the...

About this dialogue: This is a fictional exchange between an apologist and a professing Christian believer who has witnessed significant suffering, on account of which he is struggling with doubts relative to the “problem of evil.” The struggling Christian’s name is...

Reading the Bible and studying it are not the same thing.[1] I want to encourage you to make a regular habit of both. Bible reading is the best way to rapidly drink down the pure milk of the Word. By reading and surveying large portions of Scripture, we can become...

The Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians: “For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise” (1 Cor. 1:26-27). The...

Reformed theology is covenantal, but many modern Baptists are not. What about the Baptists of generations past? Were they covenantal? Did the seventeenth century Particular Baptists believe in the covenant of works? Covenant theology is an indispensable distinctive of...

The gospel is the power of God to salvation (Rom. 1:16). Its power resides in the fact of its being the revelation of the righteousness of God which is applied to the guilty record of the believing transgressor, thereby acquitting his legal guilt and causing him to be...