Want to know how to read the Old Testament? Here's a quick primer: Martin Luther said that everything bad in the Old Testament (and there's a lot) is there to point out our sin, while everything good in the Old Testament is there to point us to our S..
I think that most people, when they read the Bible (and especially when they read the Old Testament), read it as a catalog of heroes (on the one hand) and cautionary tales (on the other). Running counter to this idea of Bible-as-hero-catalog, I find ..
A couple months back I wrote about Reader's Digest Christianity, and how it reduced the Christian faith to pithy, easily-achievable goals that ensure our personal improvement. Here, I have a different (though depressingly similar) target: "LiveStrong..
My new book, One Way Love: Inexhaustible Grace for an Exhausted World, comes out Oct. 1. It is, without question, the most important book I've written to date. My hope and prayer is that God would use it to awaken burdened people (and that's all of u..
The area of personal identity is a place where the rubber of grace meets the road of everyday life in an especially palpable way. If an identity based on "works of the law" looks like John Fitzgerald Page, what might one based on the one way love of ..
There are other important things in life that can tell us what kind of person you are: chunky peanut butter, or smooth? Regular cola, or diet? It seems to me that the same is true when it comes to reading the Bible. Do you read the Bible as a helpful..
The Gospel is not a story of God meeting sinners half-way, of God desperately hoping to find that one righteous man on whom he can bestow his favor. The news is so much better than that.
Contrary to popular assumptions, the Bible is not a record of the blessed good, but rather the blessed bad. That's not a typo. The Bible is a record of the blessed bad. The Bible is not a witness to the best people making it up to God; it's a witness..
Performancism is the mindset that equates our identity and value directly with our performance and accomplishments. The Christian church has sadly not proven to be immune to performancism. Far from it, in fact. In recent years a handful of books have..
I had a few people raise this question: "Once God saves us and the Spirit begins his renewing work in our lives, shouldn't that work of inward renewal become a source of our assurance? Isn't that at least one way we can know we're right before God?"
As I mentioned in my last post, I had the privilege of speaking at the 6th annual Mockingbird Conference in NYC a few weeks ago. Below is my opening talk on the subject of our exhaustion and how God's inexhaustible grace is the only hope for our ines..
Long before the recent resurgence of interest in "gospel-centrality", Brennan was a voice calling out in the wilderness–a voice reminding us that we are great sinners but God is a greater Savior.
Urban Meyer's story may be a bit extreme, but perhaps you can relate. Perhaps you had a demanding father or mother, for whom nothing was ever good enough. Perhaps they are long gone but you still hear their voice in your head. Perhaps you have a spou..
Of the book, Michael Horton writes, "Aside from a few slogans and provocative quotes, Luther's theology is largely unknown in the land that Bonhoeffer called 'Protestantism without the Reformation.' Christianity in America desperately needs the wisdo..
When talking about "the law," we need to make an important distinction. We can call it big "L" Law and little "l" law. Big "L" law comes from God and is outlined in the Ten Commandments, reiterated in the Sermon on the Mount, and summarized by Jesus ..
Thankfully, when it comes to God's grace, there is not even a hint of exchange. No suggestion of payback, or pay it forward. There are no strings attached. Only grace can change a heart and produce law-fulfilling works of mercy, but grace is not depe..
The ironic thing about legalism is that it not only doesn't make people work harder, it makes them give up. Moralism doesn't produce morality; rather, it produces immorality.
The gospel announces that it's not on me to ensure that the ultimate verdict on my life is pass and not fail. But doesn't this unconditional declaration generate apathy – an "I don't care" posture toward life?
For every head-scratching page that Robert Capon writes, he pens a a mind-blowingly insightful one. Some of the best paragraphs I've ever read on grace come from Capon. As far as I can tell, he holds some wild ideas about the atonement. So, as with a..
A shift has taken place in the Evangelical church with regard to the way we think about the gospel and it's far from simply an ivory tower conversation. This shift effects us on the ground of everyday life.