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Personal development is certainly not wrong, but it is misleading—and it can be very disappointing—to make it our preeminent goal.

Are you busy mixing or do you drink grace straight? Are you always in a spiritual hurry or is your soul free to rest and raise a glass?

God’s good law reveals our desperation; God’s good gospel reveals our deliverer. We are in constant need of both.

Recovering the distinction between law and gospel is THE answer to the church rediscovering the gospel in our day

If we are going to understand the Bible rightly, we have to be able to distinguish properly between God’s two words: law and gospel.

Virtually the whole of the scriptures and the understanding of the entire Christian life depends upon the true understanding of the law and the gospel. (Martin Luther)

If the truth of being justified by Christ alone (not by our works) is lost, then all Christian truths are lost.

However deep and wide you think the freedom offered to sinners in the gospel is–it’s more, not less.

I contend that to be “Biblically balanced” is NOT to allot equal airtime to every Biblical theme... (read more)

People often say, "I Hate Religion But Love Jesus." But, in the Bible, is the word “religion” ever opposed to the gospel? Or, is the main idea of “religion” opposed to the main idea of the gospel?

This is an important question, not simply a theological question...

If there’s something we hate more than being told what to do, it’s being told that we can’t do anything, that we can’t earn anything–that we’re helpless, weak, and needy.

The way many of us think about sanctification is, well…not very sanctified. In fact, it’s terribly narcissistic. We spend too much time thinking about how we’re doing, if we’re growing, whether we’re doing it right or not.

The law is like the brush-fire. I cannot escape it. But if I stand in the burned-over place, where law has already burned its way through, then I will not get hurt.

I close my book Surprised by Grace: God’s Relentless Pursuit of Rebels with a story (not sure if this really happened or is simply parabolic) from Civil War days before America’s slaves were freed, about a northerner who went to a slave auction and purchased a young slave girl. As they walked away from the auction, the man turned to the girl and told her, “You’re free.”

Parents and preachers have such a hard time with grace–trust me, I know. I’m both a parent and a preacher). We understand conditions. Conditionality makes sense. Unconditionality on the other hand is incomprehensible to us.

Ok, get ready to do some real thinking here. What follows is heavy theological lifting. I asked my friend Jono Linebaugh to weigh in on the recent discussion about Law and Gospel. His thinking is solid. His nuances are crucial. He adds serious depth to this ongoing conversation. Much food for thought here.

When most of us stop long enough to consider what establishes our identity, what really makes us who we are, many of us act as if the answer to this consideration is “our performance.”

When you understand that your significance, security, and identity are all anchored in Christ, you don’t have to win—you’re free to lose. And nothing in this broken world can beat a person who isn’t afraid to lose! You’ll be free to say crazy, risky, counterintuitive stuff like, “To live is Christ and to die is gain”!

The nature of the gospel, the role and purpose of God’s law, the relationship between justification, sanctification and union with Christ, and how all of this impacts preaching and the life of the Christian—these important issues I recently discussed with my theological “Yoda,” Mike Horton recently (read more)…