Things Above Us

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Theology

Reformed Ethics, vol. 1: Created, Fallen, and Converted Humanity (book review)

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Reformed Ethics – Vol. 1 is the first in what will be an eventual 3 Volume set from one of the great rediscovered theologians of the past. Bavinck’s method for thinking through ethics is challenging and helpful. In many sections I found myself driven to worship the God who frees his people from the spirit of slavery, grants them his Spirit of Adoption, and frees them to obey Him out of gratitude.

Living in the Light: An Inconsistency in the Grammatical-Historical Hermeneutic

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I’ve sat on this blog post for some time and there have been times I thought it might not ever be published. It became one of those things where it was just good for me to write out my own thoughts and not necessarily let all of Al Gore’s interwebs observe. But I was recently […]

Soul (movie review)

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Though originally intended for theatrical release, Disney/Pixar’s Soul was released on Disney+ on Christmas last year given the present pandemic. Christians may rightly already be skeptical just by virtue of the film’s title and its dealing with souls. Weird metaphysics are to be expected, but there’s also a skewed sense of justice that’s worth examining […]

Book Review — Bavinck – A Critical Biography

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In Kingdom Through Covenant – 2nd Edition, Gentry and Wellum have given us a much needed updated to their seminal work on the biblical covenants. Whether one finds their arguments convincing or not, theologians who argue for or against covenant theology or dispensationalism will eventually have to consider the claims made by the authors.

The Immeasurable Greatness of His Power

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We are working through the book of Ephesians at Perryville Second Baptist Church. Recently, we came upon Ephesians 1:19 where Paul prays that the Ephesians would know what is the immeasurable greatness of God’s power toward believers. It’s a really great prayer. And it’s an important truth for us today. I’m sure you’ve heard some wrong ways […]

Philippians in the Legacy Standard Bible: Instances of “Think”

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In case you’ve been hiding under the sky☘, a team from The Master’s University and Seminary is working on the Legacy Standard Bible, an update to the much-beloved NASB 1995. They recently released a PDF containing the entire text of Philippians, and I’ve made the time to note all of the differences from its predecessor. […]

Unhitching: A Ditch on Either Side

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Recent History Andy Stanley famously (well, Christian-famously) mentioned that we need to “unhitch” Christianity from the Old Testament. He tried to walk back the statement afterward but, well, that’s hard to do even if had he had a good explanation. Garrett wrote about it here, and I commend that to you. Regardless of what Stanley really […]

An Age Old Question: What do you think about the End Times?

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Recently, I took a seminary examination that posed the following question. I thought I would post this question and my response for our readers. The Question During Wednesday night supper at church, Bob—one of your top children’s Sunday School teachers—comes up to you all excited: “I’ve been reading the most fantastic book about the rapture […]

Is Gambling Okay?

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The Question After we published our second playoff roundtable episode for the year, I received a question via email from a listener. Would you consider friendly wagers of $5–10 sinful? I think this is a question worth answering, and I’ll attempt to do it with brevity rather than an in-depth analysis. Does Context Matter? My […]

Socially Responsible Investing Choices, part 3 — Conscience, China, and Putting it Together

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In part 1 of this series, I discussed the concept of ESG investing from a secular standpoint and evaluated the screening of GuideStone Funds, the Southern Baptist Convention financial services arm. In part 2, I evaluated three more Christian providers of investment funds and discussed the dollar value of ESG investing. Here in part 3, […]

Unconditional Election

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The biblical doctrine of election is God’s unconditional, eternal, immutable, particular, and effectual choice to save specific persons in Christ according to His own pleasure and not on the basis of foreseen faith or merit. This precious doctrine is the wellspring of every other salvific blessing believers experience for without election, other tenets of soteriology […]

Socially Responsible Investing Choices, part 2 — More Alternatives and Dollar Value

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In part 1, we discussed secular “ESG” investing choices and did an overview of GuideStone’s negative investment screening. In this post, we’ll look at some firms that claim positive screening and consider whether these are worthwhile for the individual investor. We’ll then consider the costs of such fund choices and whether they are worth their fees. […]

What Happens When You Die?

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I had a seminary assignment recently that I thought might be a benefit to our readers. I’m posting it in its entirety below. The Question You learn that a dear older lady in your church is dying of colon cancer, so you promptly begin visiting her in the hospital. She is delighted to see you, […]

2021 Resolutions

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One of the reasons we make resolutions is that we are people who do better with some type of regimen or schedule. We rarely naturally drift into a variety of positive habits for our lives, so we need a plan. Think about it, do you need to commit to eating poorly, or does that just […]

Socially Responsible Investing Choices, part 1 — Secular “ESG” and GuideStone Funds

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Every so often, the advertisements on my social media feeds become heavily saturated with “socially responsible” or “ESG” investing products. There are also get plenty of “non-responsible” investing products and perhaps even a few overtly “sinful” investing products such as VICE (alcohol, tobacco, gambling, etc.) and TOKE (cannabis!). Lots of us are going to be […]