In "The Flowthrough Principle," which is based on Ephesians 3:1-13, I talk about how God gives us grace that he wants to "flow through" us to other people. Continue reading “The Flowthrough Principle” (Ephesians 3:1-13)
In "Understanding the ‘Want’ vs. ‘Should’ Decision," Todd Rogers and Katy Milkman make this interesting comment about how should and want related to our long-term and short-term interests: People often behave as if they possess multiple selves with different, competing interests. We call 2 of these metaphorical selves the "want-self" and the "should-self." The want-self is myopic and desires instant gratification. If left to its own devices, the want-self would always act on immediate, visceral desires (e.g., spending instead of saving money, eating junk food instead of health food). The should-self, on the other hand, prefers to behave in a … Continue reading Wants vs. Shoulds
A few months ago, Francis J. Beckwith–former president of the Evangelical Theological Society–converted to Roman Catholicism. One of his stated reasons was the seeming inadequacy of the Protestant doctrine of justification by faith. "As an evangelical, even when I talked about sanctification and wanted to practice it, it seemed as if I didn’t have a good enough incentive to do so," Beckwith told Christianity Today. "Now [in Catholicism] there’s a kind of theological framework, and it doesn’t say my salvation depends on me, but it says my virtue counts for something." In "Virtue that Counts," the editors of Christianity Today … Continue reading “Virtue that Counts”
Peter Berkowtiz wrote an excellent review of Christopher Hitchens’s God Is Not Great in today’s Wall Street Journal. Read the whole thing, but here are the concluding paragraphs: In making his case that reason must regard faith as an enemy to be wiped out, Mr. Hitchens declares Socrates’s teaching that knowledge consists in knowing one’s ignorance to be "the definition of an educated person." And yet Mr. Hitchens shows no awareness that his atheism, far from resulting from skeptical inquiry, is the rigidly dogmatic premise from which his inquiries proceed, and that it colors all his observations and determines his … Continue reading The Dogmatism of the New New Atheism
Revelation 17–18 describes and celebrates the destruction of Babylon. That great city was once the political, cultural, and religious center of Mesopotamia—and a determined foe of Israel. Because Babylon was located in what is now Iraq, and because Saddam Hussein’s dictatorial regime threatened the stability of the entire Middle East, some Bible prophecy “experts” argued that a rebuilt and revitalized Babylon was a central component of God’s end-time agenda. That is unlikely, both because of the recent demise of Hussein’s regime and because Revelation 17–18, properly interpreted, teaches no such thing, as we will see. What does Revelation 17–18 … Continue reading Regaining a Clear View of Babylon (Revelation 17:1-6)
Armageddon.The word sends shivers up my spine. It is full of doomsday imagery, of the end of the world. Even non-religious media recognize the potency of the term. A few years back, for example, Bruce Willis starred in a movie about an asteroid hurtling toward earth, threatening our planet’s very existence. The title? Armageddon. In 2003, Basic Books published Avoiding Armageddon by public policy analyst Martin Schram, which details the nuclear, biological, chemical, and terrorist threats facing America—and offers a few suggestions for how to defeat them. Of course, religious media use the term more promiscuously. One … Continue reading Armageddon (Revelation 16.12–16)
Several years ago, I sat down with a lifelong friend and his wife for dinner and a wide-ranging conversation. For some reason, we landed on the topic of universalism, which is the teaching that hell will be unpopulated, for God will save all people at the end of the age. Now, there are at least two kinds of universalists: (1) those who, like my friend’s wife, cannot imagine a loving God punishing anyone in the first place; and (2) those who, based on biblical passages such as Colossians 1.20, argue that God perseveres in his love for humanity until … Continue reading What They Deserve (Revelation 16.5–7)
Our topic in today’s meditation is once again the wrath of God. God’s wrath is his judicial anger at our sin, which finds partial fulfillment in history and ultimate completion in hell. It is an expression of God’s absolute holiness, justice, and righteousness. At the present time, God’s wrath serves a remedial purpose, namely, to show us the error of our ways and thus lead us to repentance and eternal life in him. In the future, however, at the end of the age, God’s wrath will serve a penal purpose, namely, to punish without redemption those who turn … Continue reading The Seven Bowls (Revelation 16.1–21)
I would like to speak with you today about the wrath of God. Admittedly, this is not the happiest of topics. Like you, I would rather speak of the love of God. But we must speak of God’s wrath for the same reason we must pay attention to a doctor when he proffers a bad diagnosis: Unless we acknowledge our sickness, we cannot begin to heal. If we are to find salvation in God’s love, we must know what his love is saving us from. Now, when we speak of God’s wrath, we must be careful that we do … Continue reading The Wrath of God (Revelation 15.5–8)
From the conclusion of a speech by President Calvin Coolidge commemorating the 150th anniversary of American independence: Our forefathers came to certain conclusions and decided upon certain courses of action which have been a great blessing to the world. Before we can understand their conclusions we must go back and review the course which they followed. We must think the thoughts which they thought. Their intellectual life centered around the meeting-house. They were intent upon religious worship. While there were always among them men of deep learning, and later those who had comparatively large possessions, the mind of the people … Continue reading Calvin Coolidge on the 4th of July
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