“You reap what you sow,” or at least that’s what the Bible says. But do we always? Sometimes it might seem like we get away with sin, that we violate God’s commands and nobody knows or that nobody is hurt. Sometimes, if we read quickly and carelessly, we might even think that some of the…
Indulge me for a hypothetical situation. Cell-phone video technology is present during the ministry of Jesus, and someone films Jesus saying to the lame man, “Rise up and walk.” John 5 records the miraculous moment when Christ’s spoken word restored the man’s ability to walk. So, here’s the question. If someone had taken that recording of…
FRONTLINE Volume 35 • Number 4 It has often been noted that God is working in the world primarily through three institutions—the family, the church, and the government. These institutions are like concentric circles working outward from most personal to least personal. Any pastor knows that strong congregations are made up of healthy families, and…
One of the most insightful chapters in Roy Hession’s classic, Calvary Road,1 is titled “Revival in the Home.” In it, Hession identifies two primary forces that erode family unity: a lack of openness and a misunderstanding of biblical love. At first glance, I questioned the emphasis on openness. “Really? That’s the first problem?” I thought.…
Last year we published an edition of FrontLIne with the theme, ” God, the Christian, and Human Government.” We interviewed most of our authors for that edition, but one of them was in the middle of writing a dissertation so he wasn’t able to talk about his article at that time. This week, I had…
Click here for part 1 and part 2. Paul has emphatically defended the reality of the resurrection of Christ (1 Cor 15:20) and that His people will be made alive in Him (1 Cor 15:21–22). We now explore how Paul then elaborated on how the resurrection would take place in 1 Cor 15:23–24a. The resurrection involves…
If you’ve done much reading recently on the origins debate, you may have noticed that those who want to make room for evolution in Genesis 1-2 have moved past theories like day-age and gap. The new rationale is that Genesis is a creation myth, an origin story written by an ancient people. Other cultures and…
With Martin Luther, we really have the first major denominational split from Roman Catholicism in the Lutheran Church. It is not that the true gospel didn’t exist prior to Luther, but those who held to the true gospel were simply viewed as non-conformists, people with relative anonymity. That would not be the case during and…
Nonverbal communication plays a crucial role in life. Some of it is even universally understood regardless of language barriers. According to two separate communication studies done by Dr. Albert Mehrabian in 1967, “7% of all communication is done through verbal communication, whereas the nonverbal component of our daily communication, such as the tonality of our…
I’m guessing that I’m like most conservative Christian married men my age, and by that I mean my wife loves Magnolia. In fact, when I graduated with my PhD a couple years back, we took a mini celebration trip as a couple to Waco, Texas. The location was perfect: we visited the silos of Magnolia…