If you follow the Shepherd’s Conference or John MacArthur’s ministry, you may be aware of an email circulated under the auspices of the Shepherd’s Conference called, “A Call to Pastors to Stand United on Biblical Sexual Morality.” In this letter, over John MacArthur’s signature, is a call to join with pastor James Coates and others…
How would you respond if one day you turned on the news and the coverage was about your church? The story was not about any scandal or sin but in fact amounted to a public shaming simply because your church held to the teachings of Scripture. How would you respond if some of your fellow…
The apostle Paul, seeking to help his son in the faith, wrote to Timothy, “The servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves…” (2 Tim. 2:24-25, KJV). In his encouragement and instruction, Paul was certainly not afraid to stand…
Many Americans are familiar with the First Amendment to our Constitution, the first portion of which guarantees religious liberty: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” What many do not know is that Baptists played an important role in ensuring the inclusion of religious freedom in…
Can the Puritan and the Separatist Be Friends? As I write this, the old song from the musical Oklahoma! goes through my mind. Oh, the farmer and the cowman should be friends! In a musical, the answers seem easy. In real life, it wasn’t so easy. The way of doing things in the old west…
The new year is here, with a golden opportunity to read more and better in the months ahead. Maybe you were given money for books for Christmas. Wonderful! There’s little that I enjoy more than helping other people spend money on good books! I want to recommend the possibility of your working through three books…
Sitting in my study chair reading Isaiah 47, the following arrested my attention. For you have trusted in your wickedness; You have said, ‘No one sees me’; Your wisdom and your knowledge have warped you; And you have said in your heart, ‘I am, and there is no one else besides me.’ God, speaking through…
People sometimes wonder how we can relate to characters and stories in the Bible since we’re separated from them by time and culture. However, although the circumstances are different, the people involved are not. And although God dealt with them in situations different from ours, He is the same God now as then. So every…
At some point in life, many people pause to evaluate their physical health and fitness. This personal checkpoint occurs sooner for some and later for others. If we’re wise, we look for a diet, medicine, supplement, or routine that offers more than a momentary, temporary solution. We want an approach that will heal ailments from…
What is an evangelical? In his work, No Place for Truth published in 1993 (Eerdman’s) David Wells mourned the frustrating decomposition of the term. The word evangelical precisely because it has lost its confessional dimension, has become descriptively anemic. To say that someone is an evangelical says little about what they are likely to believe…