Self-Justification: The Danger of Feeling Right While Being Wrong
DEVOTION • “The hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God” (John 16:2).
Read time: 2 min
Taylor’s Protestant Problem: How to Live Coram Deo without Burning Out
ARTICLE • Charles Taylor blamed the Protestant Reformation for the rise of secularism. He alleged that the high spiritual bar set for the average believer in Protestantism has led many to give up on the faith. Does this charge have any merit? If so, how can believers integrate their faith in all of life without caving under the pressure of living as Scripture requires?
Read time: 10 min
The Surprising Comfort of Divine Rebuke
ARTICLE • Job’s heart was transformed by a humbling encounter with God, illustrating that our awe at God’s power and wisdom is foundational to true comfort even in the midst of profound suffering.
Read time: 5 min
Your Marriage Is a Subplot within God’s Story of Redemption
WEDDING SERMON • Human marriages are sacred subplots within God's grand Story of Redemption, finite stories given context and meaning by four master plotlines of the biblical metanarrative: (1) the cultural mandate, (2) the curse on mankind, (3) the conquest of Messiah, and (4) the consummation of Christ’s marriage at the end of time.
12 min
The Convicting Work of the Spirit
SERMON • In John 16, Jesus teaches how the Holy Spirit lays a foundation in our souls that undergirds all further moral convictions: the Spirit convinces us of our sin, of Christ's perfect righteousness, and of divine judgment awaiting those who remain outside of Christ.
47 min
When Jesus Feels Far Away
SERMON • Before completing His mission and returning to the Father, Jesus assured His apostles that He was not abandoning them. Rather, in every age, disciples can experience the presence, revelation, and fellowship of God through the indwelling Holy Spirit.
49 min
Jesus Knows and Governs Your Future to the Millisecond
ARTICLE • As the disgraced Apostle Peter learned, we can entrust our future to our meticulously knowledgable, powerful, and loving Savior.
Read time: 6 min
Narrative in Therapy and Theology: A Biblical Response to Susie Orbach’s Narrative Therapy
PAPER • Often, counselees are rife with inaccurate perceptions exposed by errant narratives and trenchant problems in living. In light of these issues, I raise a pressing question: how should a counselor approach interpreting and realigning counselees’ narratives to life-giving truth?
Read time: 25 min
Intimate Fellowship with God
DEVOTION • “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him” (John 14:23).
Read time: 2 min
Teaching the World: Foundations for Online Theological Education
Book Summary • Timothy Paul Jones et al., Teaching the World: Foundations for Online Theological Education (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2017. Kindle Edition. 188 pp. $10.
Read time: 7 min
Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning
Book Summary • James Lang, Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning, 2nd ed. (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2021). Kindle Edition. 260 pp. $19.
Read time: 7 min
The Illuminating Revelation of God
DEVOTION • “Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him” (John 14:21).
Read time: 2 min
What the Best College Teachers Do
Book Summary • Ken Bain, What the Best College Teachers Do (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004). Kindle Edition. 207 pp. $22.
Read time: 5 min
Never Alone: The Promise of the Holy Spirit
DEVOTION • “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you” (John 14:18).
Read time: 2 min
Hear, My Son: Teaching and Learning in Proverbs 1–9
Book Summary • Daniel Estes, Hear, My Son: Teaching and Learning in Proverbs 1–9 (Grand Rapids: InterVarsity Press, 1997). Kindle Edition. 174 pp. $12.
Read time: 5 min
Adopted by God: Embracing Our New Identity
DEVOTION • “You have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!” (Rom. 8:15).
Read time: 2 min
On Christian Doctrine
Book Summary • Augustine of Hippo, On Christian Doctrine, trans. J. F. Shaw (Aeterna Press, 2014). 175 pp. $7.
Read time: 4 min
The End of Guilt
DEVOTION • “Though you wash yourself with lye and use much soap, the stain of your guilt is still before me” (Jer 2:22); “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow” (Is 1:18).
Read time: 3 min
Part 3 – What Are We Doing Here? How the “Aims” of Biblical Counseling Differ from Secular Therapies
ARTICLE • Biblical counseling diverges from the aims of secularized therapies in multiple ways, including the desire to transform lives into the image of Jesus Christ, to bring about personal sanctification, and to relate realistically to counselees in light of the realities of both God and indwelling sin.
Read time: 7 min
Part 2 – What Are We Doing Here? How the “Content” of Biblical Counseling Differs from Secular Therapies
ARTICLE • Biblical counselors understand that solutions to life’s problems lay external to us in God’s Word and are mediated to us through Scripture-saturated, Spirit-empowered, sanctifying conversation.
Read time: 6 min