Earnestness is the demeanor that corresponds to the weight of the subject matter of preaching — and life. The opposite of earnest is not joyful, but trivial, flippant, frivolous, chipper.

It is possible to be earnest and have elements of humor, though not levity. Spurgeon had a way with words, for example, that caused some foolish things to look ludicrous. “Live on the substantial doctrines of grace, and you will outlive and out-work those who delight in the pastry and syllabubs of ‘modern thought.’” (Lectures to My Students, 310).

Now “syllabubs” is an extraordinary word! I don’t know how many of his people knew it. It means “a sweetened drink or topping made of milk or cream beaten w…

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Asiri Fernando has posted a remarkable reflection on the life of his father, Ajith Fernando, who has led Youth for Christ in Sri Lanka for three decades. Though Ajith is two years younger than I, he is one of my heroes. If you read Asiri’s tribute you will see some of the reasons.

Here is an excerpt to whet your taste. No doubt Ajith will feel awkward about this celebration of his life. But who can deny a happy son the joy of spilling over with gratitude?

Some of my closest friends growing up were the children of the poor who lived in the slums. Families of 4–5 living in tiny room-sized houses in the meanest of conditions. For their sake my parents chose to live a simple life.

For mos…

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Some have used Colossians 1:20 to argue for universalism — that all rebel creatures, including the devil will be reconciled to God in the end and there will be no eternal hell.

Colossians 1:19–20,

In him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, ²⁰ and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

What's Said Elsewhere

I don’t think such universalism fits with what Jesus or Paul or John say elsewhere. Nor is it a necessary meaning of Colossians 1:20.

• Jesus says that there are some who “will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life” (Matthew 25:46).
• Paul said there are some w…

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The Apostles’ Creed says, “[He] was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into hell. The third day He arose again from the dead.” There are many meanings given to this phrase. I simply want to ponder the traditional interpretation that Christ went to the place of the dead to preach the gospel to Old Testament saints that he might set them free for the full experience of heaven. This is the view of the Catholic Catechism and many Protestants as well. I don’t think this is what the New Testament teaches.

The view is based mainly on two passages in 1 Peter.

Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put …

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After doing serious church-based higher education for decades, we made it official in 2009 and started Bethlehem College and Seminary (BCS). I love what God has put together.

As many of you know, I began my ministry back in 1974 as a professor of New Testament. Now that the end of my three-decade-long chapter as senior pastor at Bethlehem Baptist Church is on the horizon, I am excited that higher education is still part of God’s call on my life. Especially so when I consider that BCS is organically rooted in the very church that I am in my fourth decade of loving. As I continue to write and speak, God willing, I am eager to pour energy into raising up the next generation of leaders by ser…

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Tucked away near the bottom, and easily out of sight, is one of the compounded tragedies of abortion. The profoundly disproportionate number of black babies being aborted.

Every child is created in God's image and is knit together by him in the womb. Every child, of every race, is God's design and gift (Psalm 139:13). None should be killed.

And when there are historic and contemporary evidences that certain minorities are targeted by the abortion industry, the loss is compounded by the lurking sin of racism.

Let these numbers (these persons, these babies) sink in. Then do the research for your own state or vicinity.

With thanks for the significant work of Minnesota Citizens Concern…

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Tonight a ticket will be chosen worth over half a billion dollars. Lottery agents in New York were selling 1.3 million Mega Millions tickets per hour Thursday.

Officials were expecting to sell about 1.2 billion tickets total before the drawing.

“Americans spend about $60 billion on the lottery every year,” says Stephen Dubner, co-author of “Freakonomics.” “More than $500 per American household goes to playing the lottery.” (CBS This Morning)

There are at least seven reasons you should not gamble with your money in this way — and should tell your congressmen not to support it.

1. It is spiritually suicidal.

“Those who desire to get rich fall into temptation and a snare and many fo…

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Dietrich Bonhoeffer is claimed as a patron saint by theological schools, ranging from God is Dead to evangelical conservatives. Eric Metaxas sees his biography as one step in the rescue of Bonhoeffer from the most bizarre misuses of his thinking.

Along the way he points out, for example, Bonhoeffer’s clear and strong views on abortion. They are decisive on the immorality of it, and pastorally compassionate toward the persons in crisis.

Destruction of the embryo in the mother’s womb is a violation of the right to live which God has bestowed upon this nascent life. To raise the question whether we are here concerned already with a human being or not is merely to confuse the issue. The simp…

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Racial tensions continue to rise just as I prepare to go to New York next week to talk with Anthony Bradley and Tim Keller about race and the Christian. I watched a video on Wednesday of an African American pastor who said that recently he was denied service at a convenience store. The woman behind the counter said, “We don’t serve your kind.” That’s 2012 not 1962.

From Miami to New York to the Twin Cities frustration over the Trayvon Martin case grows. Seventeen year old Martin was killed on February 26 in Sanford, Florida by George Zimmerman. Martin was black. Zimmerman is Hispanic.

Zimmerman was a volunteer neighborhood watchman in a gated community, armed with a semiautomatic handgu…

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I take this as a serious and sober warning to people with significant influence and respected standing in the church and community. Job was a good man. “Blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil” (Job 1:1). His fall from health, wealth, and family wholeness was not owing to an evil lifestyle.

Whatever remnants of pride lying in the bottom of Job’s glass of holiness, which God meant to expose and purge, he was a faithful man, no worse than you or I.

But he was prominent. Very prominent. He was utterly successful. He was revered by the young, and respected by the old. He had authority and great influence.

For example here is a sampling from Job 29:

• I was in my…

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