I am sometimes asked why I focus on the new birth so much. The question can be asked and answered on many different levels, but the foundational answer is that our condition is desperate. Like the Laodiceans (Rev. 3:18), we need to buy refined gold from Jesus, white garments to cover our shame, and eye …
Future Makers
It may sound inspiring to say “you can change your future,” but this raises the question. From what? To what? And how can you know that you did? There is no way to two-track it in order to compare them side by side. In order to understand your relationship to the future, you must understand …
The Immediacy of the Effectual Call
“Instead of the Church and the sacraments, the means of grace, being conceived, as they are represented in the Scriptures, and as they must be thought of in all healthful religious conceptions of them, as instrumentalities which the Holy Spirit uses in working salvation, the Holy Spirit is made an instrument which the Church, the …
Obey Your Confession
Note: I have a book in process which consists of my notes on the Westminster Confession. What follows, Lord willing, will be part of the introduction to that book. The Westminster is basically the systematics course for Greyfriars Hall. In case you were curious. Some of you have had occasion to look at the Constitution …
Conversion and Conversionism
One of the points I have been seeking to emphasize recently is the importance of evangelicalism. But let me break out what I mean by this because confusion on such a point is pretty easy. I grew up in the context of North American evangelicalism, which includes two things that are pertinent to this discussion. …
Like a Blue Comet
Ralph Wood recently made a wonderful statement regarding Chesterton, although Dr. Woods is in no way responsible for any of the downstream consequences that his observation then decided to have in my head. He said that Chesterton was a remarkable fusion between the sacramental vision and the prophetic vision. I think this is exactly right, …
Jesus and Conservatism
Everyone must stand somewhere in order to say anything. And even if what he wants to say is that the previous sentence is not true, he still has to stand somewhere to say it. We can run, but we can’t hide. If one of the things I want to say (or confess) is that Jesus …
The Sacrament of Abominations
My friend Toby Sumpter recently tweeted this: “Sometimes a pastor needs to take a man’s baptism & trash it & bury it in front of him & only then will it become true.” Why would a pastor say something like that? Aren’t we ministers of Word and sacrament? Why would we ever want to trash …
Evangelicalism, Cultural and Doctrinal
In discussions with a friend, he wondered at my use of evangelical to describe my position, when many Calvinistic evangelicals (think Lloyd-Jones here) would certainly balk at my applications of it. A word of warning first. Some of the following may be disturbing to my Baptist friends, but I don’t mind spooking them — but …
The New Birth in a Type
The absolute necessity of the new birth can be seen in a type. The law of God distinguished between clean and unclean animals — the unclean could not be offered in sacrifice. From this, some might want to infer that any clean animal could be so offered, but this was not the case at all. …