Category: Christianity
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Race and the Church RVA: Telling the Truth
On Saturday morning January 30, scores of church leaders, along with a smathering of parishioners, gathered in the basement of an old department-store-turned-church in Richmond, Virginia for a discussion on Race and the Church. The invited primary speaker was Dr. Sean Lucas, pastor of historic First Presbyterian Church of Hattiesburg, Mississippi; adjunct professor at Reformed…
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Selling Out the Gospel at the Altar of Politics
I don’t do politics on social media (nor in the pulpit), but I feel an exception is warranted – on social media, anyway. With the exception that I don’t really care that Donald Trump has not previously held public office, nor do I care that neither Ben Carson nor Carly Fiorina have ever held public office, pretty much…
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I Pledge My Life to Jesus & the Gospel
I pledge my life to Jesus and the Gospel. I want Jesus not to be just part of my life or something that makes me feel good, but to be the very center – controlling everything. I want only the knowledge of the love of God. I want to know Christ. I want no desire,…
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Symbol of a New Day Dawning
From time to time I am asked why I have a rooster for a profile picture, both on my blog and on Facebook. What’s more, the rooster is also the screensaver on my phone. I use these images for more reason than just the bucolic tranquility they depict. The rooster has a long history as…
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Warped Christianity
Sociologist Christian Smith introduced the phrase Moralistic Therapeutic Deism in his book Soul Searching:The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers. Smith, and his colleagues, assert that, from their research, this would be a fitting description of the spirituality of the typical American teenager – a spirituality they gained from watching and listening to their Baby…
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Here We Stand: An Evangelical Declaration on Marriage
After the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on marriage yesterday, a diverse coalition of Evangelical leaders, gathered by the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, drafted and released the following statement. Had I been asked – and if I am asked – I would gladly add my name. ~ WDG *** As evangelical Christians, we dissent from…
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Gospel Greater Than God’s Law
Preaching through Paul’s Letter to the Galatians, I have received quite a bit of feedback – more than I receive during most series I have done. Much to the relief of my thin skin, I have received no criticism (to date). Most of the comments have been appreciative, either for the reminder of things that we need…
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Gospel vs. Legalism
What is the difference between legalism and the gospel? Legalism (or Moralism) says God looks at how well we keep the law. The Gospel says we are hidden in Christ. So God sees how well Jesus kept the Law (perfectly), all his works, and his death on our behalf. Consequently, because we are hidden in…
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New City Catechism
Over the weekend I spent some time reviewing the relatively new New City Catechism. While it has been around for a couple years now, and I had heard about it even prior to it’s original publication, I had not really given it much attention, until now. I was impressed by the combination of depth and…
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Christmas Mythology
There are no shortages of claims that Christmas, and Christianity, is based upon the ancient myths of other cultures. I appreciate the work of the folks at Lutheran Satire for so humorously dispelling those claims.
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Christmas Gospel: Glory Triumphs Over Tragedy
What happens when the glory of God’s grace collides with the tragedy of man’s sin and consequential brokenness? Paul Tripp’s answer: “Christmas!” God’s glory triumphs over the tragedy of our brokenness.
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Star of Bethlehem
As a follow up to my post Saturday concerning the debate about the date of Jesus’ birth, (which was an excerpt from the message I delivered Sunday,) a friend from church sent me this video to check out. It is filled with fascinating, coroborating information.
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Inebriated by the Gospel
Great grace laced imagery from Robert Capon: The Reformation was a time when men went blind, staggering drunk because they had discovered, in the dusty basement of late medievilism, a whole cellarful of fifteen-hundred-year-old, two-hundred-proof grace – of bottle after bottle of pure distillate of Scripture, one sip of which would convince anyone that God…
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You Might Be Reformed If…
As one who dwells firmly within the Reformed wing of Evangelical Christianity, I found the following to be astute, accurate, and a little bit amusing: You might be Reformed … If you think prayer is more than just trying to manipulate God into giving you what you want … If you think that there are…
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Uneasy ‘Calvinist’
I feel no little uneasiness when labeled a Calvinist. It is not that the description is unfitting. Nor is it because I have any disaffection for Calvin. Quite the contrary. My reservation is that there is much baggage that accompanies that label – baggage assigned by those who reject the tenants of the Faith associated…
