Category: 500 Words

  • Vaccinated Against Conscience

    How can Christians maintain unity in light of debates over COVID mandates? Maybe you are on the side of the young woman who wrote, “there is no better way in our current climate to walk out the command to ‘consider others better than yourself’ than to receive the vaccine.” There are other Christians who share…

  • Pray for the 2021 General Assembly

    Pray for the 2021 General Assembly

    This year, there are 47 overtures. You may peruse them here. These may not all come to the floor of the assembly. They read, however, like a laundry list of contemporary concerns. We may address issues like Critical Race Theory, white supremacy, and “Asian American Flourishing.” The overarching concern at this time, however, is our…

  • Good Works Get You Into Heaven

    Good Works Get You Into Heaven

    You are not saved “because of works.” So you and I would never say we are going to heaven because we’ve been good enough. This sort of person might also believe he’s able to fill the Grand Canyon one grain of sand at a time. It is also sinful, though, to say works are not…

  • Right Doctrine and the Function of Denominations

    Right Doctrine and the Function of Denominations

    There is a place, then, for faithful denominations to emphasize and debate their differences. Those differences matter. We should be equally vocal, however, about what we call the “catholicity” of the church. In the Apostles’ Creed, we confess, “I believe in the holy catholic church.” Catholic, in this sense, means universal. There is one and…

  • “Woke” Anger

    On the morning of January 11, 2017, a grieving mother stood in a crowded courtroom and said these words to her son’s murderer, “I forgive you.” The godly woman was Felicia Sanders. The murderer was Dylann Roof. On June 17, 2015, Roof went into Emanuel AME church in Charleston, SC, and murdered nine parishioners in…

  • Two Classes

    It’s a sad reality that we have been and continue to be indoctrinated to think of humanity only in terms of skin color. Some would prefer I use the term “race” instead of skin color but it’s time to get rid of that word and the way we currently use it. The Scriptures teach us…

  • Modest Dress and Godly Femininity

    Modest Dress and Godly Femininity

    There are two challenges against you. First, the feminist movement has worked for decades to tell you that your opinion about how women dress is a matter of oppression. Second, your daughter has a natural, sinful desire to dress immodestly. There is a fallen belief system behind her clothing choices.

  • Slow to Speak

    This week, I was going to discuss the error of liberation theology, but there are yet more stories about police officers killing young, black men. We are hearing of Daunte Wright, of Minnesota, Adam Toledo of Chicago, and, most recently, Peyton Ham of Leonardtown, Maryland. These events are deeply concerning to us, as Christians. Every…

  • The Godly Discipline of Reserving Judgment

    The Godly Discipline of Reserving Judgment

    It is sinful either to be biased toward young, black men or police officers. Perhaps the killing was self-defense and justified. Perhaps it was murder and worthy of capital punishment itself. As we navigate these tumultuous times, your Christian testimony will shine brightly as you both denounce criminality, wherever it exists, and uphold the biblical…

  • “Race” and Christ

    Issues of race are inflaming our country. Recently, we have been told that everything from mathematics to the layout of the national interstate system is based on an underlying current of systemic racism. As Christians, this should be of concern to us. In part, this is because much of the modern conversation about “race” flows out of an evolutionary framework.…

  • The Great White vs. The Yellowfin

    The Great White vs. The Yellowfin

    If you look at the way things work in the world, it often does seem like the wicked are prospering. And in Job chapter 12 we’re at this point where there’s this dialogue between Job and his friends. They are trying to instruct Job, explain to Job, why he’s experiencing such calamity. His family is…

  • Martin Luther’s Easter Book and the Extra Calvinisticum

    As we come up to the celebration of Resurrection Sunday, I want to recommend a resource to you that you can read maybe over the next week or so, devotionally. It’s a resource put together by Roland Bainton. That name may be familiar to you since he’s written what many consider to be the best…