Christian Living Resources, Bible Study Tools, Jesus Christ

Is “sinner” is an appropriate term to describe Christian identity?

To read and preach the Bible as if it were fundamentally about us and what we should do is to miss the point of the Bible entirely.

The world tells us in a thousand different ways that the bigger we become, the freer we will be. The gospel tells us just the opposite.

God sent His Son not only to suffer in our place but also to suffer with us. Our merciful friend has been through it all. He is with us right now! And while He may not deliver us from pain and loss, He’ll walk with us through it.

All of our attempts (well intentioned as they may be) to minimize suffering reveal our universal, fatal love affair with control and law.

Almighty God desires simply to be known as the giver of the gift of absolute grace. To this we say “no”. Then the relationship is destroyed [by our 'morality'] just as surely as it is by our immorality.

Moralists interpret misfortune as the karmic result of misbehavior. This for that. “You failed to obey God, so He gave your child an illness.” Such rule-based economies of punishment and reward may be the default mode of the fallen human heart, but that doesn’t make them any less brutal!

My good friend Justin Buzzard called to tell me that he was writing a book (in his exact words) on “how to date your wife.” Somewhat taken aback, I said, “Your writing a book on how to date my wife?”

Christian discipleship is a process of paying more and more attention to God’s righteousness and less and less attention to our own

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...