Think Theology

“There is a difference between preaching Christ and preaching about Christ. Preaching Christ is presenting him so clearly and directly that the people experience the sermon this way: “It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified” (Galatians 3:1). Preaching about Christ is presenting ideas related to him. It’s a good [...]

“He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory.” Paul’s summary of God’s plan for redemption, found explicitly in the life, ministry, death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ, is beautiful.

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 [...]

Yesterday morning I shared a brief message on the first section of Psalm 103 (audio here). It was really just a short devotional, but I believe God really spoke to me through the Psalm. The text spoke to me probably because it was Father’s Day and because I was struggling with teaching on the subject [...]

“Athanasius showed us that sometimes it is not right to compromise – when core theology is at stake. There are matters of ego and nonessentials on which it is proper and Christian for us to compromise. But when the heart of the gospel is at stake, it is time to be like Athanasius and refuse [...]

In Grudem’s Systematic Theology (pp. 572-4), he provides four areas that Jesus experienced pain in the crucifixion: (1) Physical Pain and Death (2) The Pain of Bearing Sin (3) Abandonment (4) Bearing the Wrath of God Which of these four areas strikes you as more overwhelming to consider?

“In Jesus the promise is confirmed, the covenant is renewed, the prophecies are fulfilled, the law is vindicated, salvation is brought near, sacred history has reached its climax, the perfect sacrifice has been offered and accepted, the great priest over the household of God has taken his seat at God’s right hand, the Prophet like [...]

“The plain old Protestant doctrine is that the place of faith in justification is only that of a hand or instrument, receiving the righteousness of Christ, for the sake of which alone we are justified. So that, though great scholars do often confound themselves and others in their disputations about faith’s justifying a sinner, every [...]

“It deserves notice that the views of the apostles, after the atonement had become an accomplished fact, underwent the most memorable change. Long had the repelled the thought of Christ’s death, which they clearly enough perceived must be the death-blow of all their Jewish dreams and theories. But when it actually arrived, and they looked [...]

“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 [...]

Many times I have been led to declare Christ’s love over and against the love that mere humans can express. In fact, as much as we can love anyone, Christ can love beyond our love, in a way that is pure and devoted to the glory of God! We can’t even imagine such love! We [...]

“Ask Mary and Joseph, the Magi and the Shepherds [what they thought of the Child]. They will tell you that they found in this extreme poverty an indescribable tenderness, and an infinite dignity worth of the majesty of God.” – Jean-Pierre De Caussade (1675-1751)

In grad school I had a professor that taught a class called “Trinitarian Theology” which covered the doctrine of the Trinity. From Genesis to Revelation, our professor walked through the glorious truths that (1) God is three persons, (2) Each person is fully God, and (3) There is one God. Time and time again I [...]

“As the new birth, the acquisition of eternal life, has been grounded in the ‘lifting up’ of the Son (vv. 14-15), so also that ‘lifting up’, the climax of the Son’s mission, is itself grounded in the love of God. The mission of the Son and its consequences is the theme of the paragraph, but [...]