Folks have asked me what I thought about the changes going on at my alma mater, Moody Bible Institute. It took me quite a while to process my response, so here it is.

I am very proud to have graduated from the Moody Bible Institute. In recent months, the school has been rocked with a change in administration. Unlike many requested resignations, the president of Moody did not resign because of moral or financial scandal.

Although even alumni don’t have a full picture, it seems that the resignation of the president and several other higher-ups was more about leadership style, communication (or lack thereof), and circumventing accepted procedures and standards. To put it simply, these matters needed to be addressed, but were a far cry from the scandals that...

Some of my best friends and my most admired heroes of the Christian faith believe in the practice of baptizing infants and bringing them into the membership of the church apart from any profession of faith. My love and respect for these dear brothers and venerable men of God has on more than one occasion inclined me to reconsider whether they’ve got it right and I’ve got it wrong.

But after “revisiting” the issue several times, I’m still a Baptist. I could offer several reasons. But one reason involves the teaching of a text that’s often overlooked in the Infant Baptism (Paedobaptism) vs. Believer Baptism (Credobaptism) debate. That text is John 1:12-13.

But to as many as received [Jesus Christ], He granted the legal warrant to become children of God, even to...

It is so important that we focus on God’s perspective concerning ultimate origins. Human theories, hypotheses, speculations and opinions come and go. But the God “who cannot lie” (NKJV, Tit. 1:2), who was there when the world began, has written a perfect book—the Bible—which He requires that we read and believe (Rom. 10:17).

Let us think, then, about the vital and blessed heritage that Christians enjoy as we understand the truths of creationism.

The Bible, God’s unique, inerrant, inspired, infallible written revelation, informs us that the world was not the product of some vague designer (to say nothing of time through chance by mindless evolution), but was the creative work of the Second Person of the triune God, Jesus Christ our Lord.

...

J.C. Ryle continues dispensing some advice for preachers:¹

The fourth hint I will give is this: If you wish to preach simply—use a DIRECT style. What do I mean by this? I mean the practice and custom of saying “I” and “you.”

When a man takes up this style of preaching, he is often told that he is conceited and egotistical. The result is that many preachers are never direct—and always think it very humble and modest and becoming to say “we.” But I remember good Bishop Villiers saying that “we” was a word kings and corporations should use, and they alone—but that parish clergymen should always talk of “I” and “you.” I endorse that saying with all my heart.

I declare I never can understand what the famous pulpit “we” means....

Reposted with permission from The Cripplegate.

You’ve probably heard it said. “All of the Abrahamic religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—they all worship the same God.” More and more today, we hear such things from the mouths and tweets of idealized and uninformed westerners.

However, such thinking is a hazardous ignorance. The Qur’an does not believe that Allah (the God of the Qur’an) and the God of Christianity are the same. Many Qur’anic teachers do not believe that they are the same. And neither do biblically thinking Christians.

Last week the Cripplegate began a series on the differences between the Qur...

Read Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.

Returning to chapter 7 of 2 Samuel, verse 13 speaks of David’s son building “a house for My name” with the addition of the pledge of an everlasting dynastic kingdom. Walter Kaiser has commented on the connection between the establishing of a kingdom and the right to erect a temple. He writes,

[A]ccording to 2 Samuel 7:13…the “house” of David had to be first established by Yahweh before a temple could be built. Temple building could only be the...

Much has been written on the topic of spiritual gifts by both cessationists and continuationists. Enter Spiritual Gifts: What They Are & Why They Matter, written by a continuationist turned “nuanced cessationist,” Thomas R. Schreiner. Schreiner is a leading New Testament scholar and the James Harrison Buchanan Professor of New Testament Interpretation at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Although Schreiner is a New Testament scholar, he writes Spiritual Gifts for the person in the pew who desires to gain more insight into spiritual gifts without having to wade into the exegetical minutia of an in-depth, scholarly treatment of the topic.

Schreiner begins Spiritual Gifts by stating he writes the book not only to support “a kind of...

So you want to be a hypocrite … If you believe the gospel, you’re at a disadvantage. You may not ever achieve the elite-level hypocrisy we find in Matthew 23, which probably requires a Pharisee-like depth of unbelief. But don’t be discouraged. Even believers can achieve several forms of high-quality hypocrisy.

Since all humans lapse into hypocrisy from time to time without even trying, I’m confident that, with just a little work, even you can achieve a noticeable level of expertise.

Here’s how.

1. Get very comfortable with inconsistency.

Hypocrisy is more than inconsistency. True, in Matthew 23:3 Jesus faults the Pharisees because “they preach, but do not practice.” But consider the inconsistencies of Jesus’ hand-picked twelve...