Lesslie Newbigin writes:

Once the gospel is preached and there is a community which lives by the gospel, then the question of the ultimate meaning of history is posed and other messiahs appear. So the crisis of history is deepened (The Gospel in a Pluralistic Society, [Grand Rapids: Baker, 1989], 122, paragraphing mine).

The advance of the gospel deepens the crisis of history. Newbigin's explanation here is fascinating. Before people are confronted with the gospel, we are unaware of the right question to ask. The gospel intrudes with both the question and answer, however, the answer is only an answer to those who believe.

Even if the answer is not embraced, the question is still the…

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Jerome Weller was a theology student under Martin Luther's direct influence, living in his home and tutoring his children for nearly a decade. In July 1530, Luther wrote a letter of advice to Weller who was in the midst of a depression.

. . . Excellent Jerome, You ought to rejoice in this temptation of the devil because it is a certain sign that God is propitious and merciful to you. You say that the temptation is heavier than you can bear, and that you fear that it will so break and beat you down as to drive you to despair and blasphemy. I know this wile of the devil. If he cannot break a person with his first attack, he tries by persevering to wear him out and weaken him until the per…

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In this Gospel Coalition discussion, D. A. Carson comments about the use of Covenant Eyes for accountability in the battle against Internet pornography —

(Watch on YouTube.)

Today, 72% of kids have been exposed to pornography on the Internet. At colleges,
62% of men and 17% of women spend time online every week for sex-related amusement.

Covenant Eyes provides an accountability forum that monitors every website visited and rates the content. This information is compiled into easy-to-read reports which are sent regularly to anyone you choose. This helps friends, spouses, and parents have ongoing conversations about responsible and pure Internet use. Fleeing sexual temptations means …

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The founders of the United States of America were not trying to create a Christian nation in 1776. But they did view the Christian faith as beneficial to the type of republic they hoped to form. The man who led the way in articulating this benefit was John Witherspoon, a Presbyterian minister and influential founder who flies under the radar of most American history classes.

Witherspoon contended that the contribution of "true religion" to the public order is the morality of its people. If we were to translate this into our contemporary lingo we'd say, "The gospel's influence on society is transformed lives."

Witherspoon's explanation is a piece of very applicable logic.

Biographer Jef…

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The Bible tells us that God knows the hearts of all men and that he even fashioned them himself (1 Kings 8:39; Acts 1:24; Psalm 33:15). But then why are there tests, like in Abraham's case in Genesis 22:1-2? If God knew Abraham's heart and what he would do, what was the point in having him climb the mountain and lay Isaac on the altar?

John Piper writes:

God wills to know the actual, lived-out reality of our preference for him over all things. And he wills that we have the testimony of our authenticity through acts of actual preference of God over his gifts.

Lewis is right that God may as well not have created the world, but only imagined it, if his knowing what "would be" is as good a…

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John Newton writes about the centrality of Christ in our fellowship with God:

Communion presupposes union. By nature we are strangers, yea, enemies to God; but we are reconciled, brought nigh, and become his children, by faith in Christ Jesus. We can have no true knowledge of God, desire towards him, access unto him, or gracious communications from him, but in and through the Son of his love.

He is the medium of this inestimable privilege: for he is the way, the only way, of intercourse between heaven and earth; the sinner's way to God, and God's way of mercy to the sinner. If any pretend to know God, and to have communion with him, otherwise than by the knowledge of Jesus Christ, whom he…

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Clear Cut Media has recently produced a new discipleship resource by Wayne Grudem on 20 basic questions about Christian theology.

Each lecture is 40 minutes, with an additional 15 minutes of Q&A. The videos can be downloaded individually from Clear Cut Media, or purchased at their online store. Their website also features a course overview, contents of each session, and ideas of how to use the resource.

For the month of July, they're offering this DVD set at 50% off the regular price.

To get this discount, use this special code: DGSPECIAL

Helmut Thielicke's A Little Exercise for Young Theologians was written for nascent theology students in the mid-twentieth century, but it really applies to us all now. In 1959 the academic institutions of these "young theologians" introduced them to theological truths that are only clicks away from us today. The accessibility we have in the West to theological resources is astounding. And it's also dangerous.

The mind moves a little faster than the heart. It's easier for us to intellectually apprehend truth than it is for us to actually embrace it. This creates what Thielicke calls the hiatus between the arena of spiritual growth and what we already know intellectually about this arena (1…

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In the Introduction to Pastor John's 1979 monograph, Love Your Enemies, he confesses his concern about the hard work of academic reading. He writes:

Every scholarly work on the New Testament is preponderantly an intellectual exercise. The work of thinking which the production of a book like this demands from the author is demanded also from its reader. But because of the nature of the reality with which this work has to do, the necessary preponderance of intellectual work can nevertheless frustrate the goal for which the work is done.

For that reality is and demands far more than thinking. Adolf Schlatter has warned: "Thought can become scholasticism, a mere jangle of words, if the concep…

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In a 2000 sermon, John Piper draws out six truths from 1 Peter 2:9-17 about how Christians should be involved in society and culture.

________

1. We were once all in darkness, along with the whole world.

Notice the phrase near the end of verse 9: "Him who has called you out of darkness." We were once in darkness. The darkness of sin and unbelief and ignorance about God and his ways. It was the darkness of deadness in sin, as Paul says in Ephesians 2:5. This is the condition of our culture and our society. And we were once a part of it by nature. Why are we no longer?

2. God called us out of darkness into his marvelous light.

This truth comes from the same phrase in verse 9: "Him wh…

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