Think Theology

If I had a dollar for every time that someone said they had a “prayer request” or a “concern” about someone, and then they proceeded to gossip and slander another fellow Christian, I really do think I’d be rich beyond belief. It has, quite frankly, occurred around me my entire life. I don’t believe I’ve [...]

Justin Taylor has recently provided David Powlison’s answers to fifteen important questions related to Christian counseling. I’ve found them extremely helpful, wise, and biblically saturated. If you have an interest in providing Godly counsel and understanding the human heart, I’d encourage you to read through the following links. These questions are taken from Powlison’s essay [...]

Paul gave the Corinthians an imperative when he wrote, “Let a person examine himself.” I continue to consider self-examination (see previous post, How am “I” doing). Karl Graustein, author of Growing Up Christian, provides helpful questions for young believers to consider, based upon 2 Cor. 13. He suggests we ask the following: Do you pray? [...]

I’m preaching through the book of Haggai for the next four weeks. Today we started chapter 1 (audio here). We’re going to study each of the four prophetic messages that Haggai gave to Israel, but let’s talk background for a minute – the background for the book of Haggai, the tenth of the Minor Prophets. [...]

The Apostle Peter advised his readers that, in expectation for the eschatological, they should have “lives of holiness and godliness” (2 Pet. 3:11). Throughout the Scriptures, believers are to be marked by holiness (cf. Lev. 19:2; 20:26; 22:32-34; 1 Thess. 4:3-7; 2 Cor. 7:1; Eph. 4:20-24; Heb. 12:10, 14). Regardless of what culture has deemed [...]

Ask Doug: American Flag and the Pledge of Allegiance in Church? from Canon Wired on Vimeo.

“The hermeneutical enterprise also has three levels… We begin with a third-person approach, asking “what it meant” (exegesis), then passing to a first-person approach, querying “what it means for me” (devotional), and finally taking a second-person approach, seeking “how to share with you what it means to me” (sermonic). When we try only one and [...]

In the past five years I’ve had an opportunity to make a few observations about how Christian parents raise their children (toddlers to teenagers). These observations have been made within the context of a local congregation and as I’ve visited other congregations too. I’ve seen some parents make a huge deal about the necessity of [...]

We live in a day when it’s hard to tell the difference between truth and error. Why is that? Because we have fallen prey to the Postmodern philosophy that says words don’t matter very much. This relativistic attitude has infiltrated the church so that people can say one thing and do another and no one [...]

David Powlison recently taught a seminar at Bethlehem Baptist Church on the subject of biblical counseling. CCEF has set up a page containing his seminar notes and related articles. And Bethlehem has made the audio available for streaming or download: Session 1 Session 2 Session 3 Session 4

About two weeks ago someone in our neighborhood called the police on us because our four year old son was riding his bike on the road without a helmet and our two year old daughter was playing in the front yard “unsupervised”(I was watching out the window). When the officer came to talk to me [...]

This command from Romans 12:15 has been on my mind a lot lately. You see, it’s real easy for me to get into theological debates and feel pretty smug about being right. But when the words of God like this one from Romans take an x-ray of my soul the results don’t always show a [...]

Today Earth Day is being celebrated as a non-partisan observance in public schools and universities across the country; but as anyone who has been reading lately knows, the subject of global warming and how to deal with it is anything but a non-partisan issue.  Kevin DeYoung will give you some encouragement here on how to [...]

I am the lucky brother of a wonderful sister who has down syndrome. I have also had friends and family who have lost infants. Lately I’ve had several people ask me about babies who die and people with developmental disabilities. What happens to them when they die? Well, this question is close to many of [...]

“The Sermon thus makes no claim to present an ethic for all men; indeed much of it would make no sense as a universal code. It is concerned not with ethics in general, but with discipleship, with man in his obedience and devotion to God, not with a pattern for society. To interpret it legalistically [...]

In 1984 I entered into kindergarten. In my recollection, I was kind of a shy kid when it came to being away from my parents. My mom probably thinks I was a terror handful, but I remember feeling very insecure as a young child. I’m not really sure why though. Anyway, I enter kindergarten and [...]

I wanted to take a few moments to make some observations and state some of my thoughts in regards to theological education. Two weekends ago I spent some time with some folks interested in my opinion on the subject of ministry training and I just read through an interesting article over at the Evangelical Textual Criticism [...]

Along with Mark Dever, I agree that one of the nine marks of a healthy church is expositional preaching (I’m sure there are other characteristics of a healthy church, but his book is very good). The 9Marks ministry defines expositional preaching as a sermon which takes the point of the text as the point of [...]

I really enjoy Andrew Faris’ blog contributions at Christians in Context. A couple of the latest are extremely thought-provoking. For instance, Faris provides Toward a Theology of Smoking. I am not a Fundamentalist (in the more radical and negative sense), so I obviously liked this post. And no, I’m not a flaming liberal either, despite [...]

Peter Kirk at Gentle Wisdom has some helpful comments regarding some technical notes that Mike Aubrey made, all in relation to Ephesians 5. Mike suggests that we understand the participles of Paul’s Greek as pointing us to the results of being filled with the Spirit as opposed to reading the Greek as imperative commandments. Peter [...]

Jonathan Edwards is, in my opinion, clearly one of the greatest minds that America has every produced. I’m continually challenged by his life and writings. I just picked up a copy of Storm’s devotional on Colossians and found this gem in the introduction: Be assiduous in reading the holy Scriptures. This is the fountain whence [...]

In the last two years I have become more interesed in a subject that I previously had little interest in and very little time for - leadership! The amount of books written on the subect is amazing; the ministries dedicated to this subject overwhelming; and the self-proclaimed specialists disturbing. Let’s face it, the subject is getting [...]

While we continue our previous discussion on the subjects of Church History and Historical Theology, make sure to click on the Peanuts cartoon on the left. It is hilarious! Anyway, there is much that we, the Body of Christ, can learn from our extensive history and we would be foolish to overlook the rich resource that [...]

About eight years ago I had the privilege of visiting and attending Bethlehem Baptist Church for a short time. BBC is where John Piper serves as Pastor of Preaching & Vision. I was an undergrad student at a Pentecostal University that had a significantly different theological position than that of Bethlehem. In fact, I was instructed by several to [...]