They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer…Every day they devoted themselves to meeting together in the temple, and broke bread from house to house. They ate their food with joyful and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. Every day […]

Society hates the word sin. One of the only secular sins is to use that term. We’d rather speak about making mistakes, or suffering from an addiction, or having a lapse in judgment. But leave sin out of it! But we can’t. Not using your turn signal is a mistake (I see you Texas!). Lying […]

How did the early Christians worship? Did they worship the way that we do today? Did they watch priests perform rituals, as in the liturgical churches? Did they sit quietly listening to a lecture, as in Protestant and Evangelical churches? Was the meeting centered around a priest, pastor, or another clerical figure, while the laity […]

Are you finding it hard to praise God right now? Maybe things haven’t been going your way—not for a while. Work has been challenging, and your future at that company is still being determined. You’re struggling with your kids’ behavior and unsure of what to do about it. Things haven’t been the same with your […]

After this, he left Athens and went to Corinth, where he found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla because Claudius had ordered all the Jews to leave Rome. Paul came to them, and since they were of the same occupation, tentmakers by trade, […]

One of the most frequent objections to the claim that salvation is by faith in Jesus apart from works is that no one believed that for most of church history. The thinking goes: if no one believed it, it must not be true because Jesus wouldn’t allow His church to abandon the gospel entirely. My […]

Let all bitterness, anger and wrath, shouting and slander be removed from you, along with all malice. And be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving one another, just as God also forgave you in Christ (Eph 4:31-32). “Why are there so many angry theologians?” Christianity Today wonders. I’ve asked myself that same question. While […]

Christians often have a complicated relationship with money. A wrong attitude toward it can mean having a wrong attitude toward giving. For example, many Christians think the Bible teaches that money is evil. Is that true? Is that what the Bible says? You need to know to develop a proper view of giving under grace. […]

How does your church address the problem of sexual immorality? The cultural pressure is rising, and society’s views are changing rapidly—at least, that’s what the media tells us. Christians are increasingly coming under fire at work and school. What do we do? An author I follow recently said this: “The Church is divided by questions […]

If Valentine’s Day is a celebration of love, what kind do you celebrate? Dig into people’s motivations, and you might find that everyone approaches love in one of two ways, thinking it’s either conditional or unconditional. It’s sad to say, but the only love many people have ever known is conditional. Maybe you quickly learned […]

People are confronted with dozens, if not thousands, of conflicting religious messages. How can they distinguish between the true and the false? They’re looking for evidence. Some more than others. And some more logically than others. But what kind of evidence do they look for? If you took a course in Christian apologetics, you’d think […]

He ordered them to tell no one, but the more he ordered them, the more they proclaimed it (Mark 7:36). Which half of that verse is true of you? Some people fit the last half. They want to tell everyone about Jesus, and the more you ask them to stop, the more they’ll do it. […]

Many people are spiritually hungry and actively seeking for something they know not what. In the modern smorgasbord of religious pluralism, people have sampled all kinds of spiritual dishes and have walked away starving. If that’s you, then you have a Jesus-shaped hunger, and He invites you to come and eat: “I am the bread […]

No one likes to hear bad news—at least not about themselves. We filter it out whenever we can and prefer to accentuate the positive. But when Jesus delivers the bad news, you should listen. In John’s Gospel, Jesus told people that the way to be saved was simply by believing in Him (John 3:17-18). Do […]

If you’re exploring Christianity and don’t know where to begin, I recommend starting with John’s Gospel. It tells you what Jesus did for you through His death and resurrection and reveals His divine identity.  And crucially, it presents what some call the promise of life. Simply put, Jesus told people that if they believed in […]

Not everyone’s brains are wired the same. We consider some behaviors “normal” and other behaviors “atypical.” I’m thinking about things such as paying attention, reasoning, problem-solving, emotional control, comprehending texts, interpreting social cues, and sensitivity to sound and touch. Over the decades, we’ve learned more about the natural range of human behaviors and neurology. In […]

Question Hi, my name is Blake. I believe faith in Jesus is the only requirement for eternal life. I have some convictions about the teaching of eternal life being the object of our faith in Jesus (i.e., “Believe in Jesus for eternal life.”) That seems to be implied by some examples of faith, such as […]

We need more grace churches. We need more assemblies that preach a clear saving message of believing in Jesus for eternal salvation without mixing legalism into it. Readers of this blog know how rare those churches are. That involves convincing churches that already exist to be clear, but it will also include planting new grace […]

What kind of images comes to mind when you think of the church? Maybe you think of it as a building, a business, an employer, or an institution. Of course, three out of those four aren’t New Testament images (cf. Eph 2:21), and the fact that we think of the church in those ways (e.g., […]

One of the most common ways of teaching salvation by works on the sly is to redefine faith to mean doing good works. That way, a preacher can claim to believe in “justification by faith apart from works,” but he really means that you’re justified by doing some works but not others. You might not […]