The following is an excerpt from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Articles 74-83:

74 God “desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth”: that is, of Christ Jesus. Christ must be proclaimed to all nations and individuals, so that this revelation may reach to the ends of the earth:

God graciously arranged that the things he had once revealed for the salvation of all peoples should remain in their entirety, throughout the ages, and be transmitted to all generations.

The Apostolic Tradition

75 “Christ the Lord, in whom the entire Revelation of the most high God is summed up, commanded the apostles to preach the Gospel, which had been promised beforehand by the prophets, and which he fulfilled in his own person...

Reposted from The Cripplegate.

Women are a great gift of God. I love the four I get to live with. My daughters are showing me up in skiing and soccer. My wife was a gymnast for years, and can do backflips on a four-inch wide balance beam four feet off the ground. I’m still working on somersaults. And she is smarter than me in every area of life. But that’s just a small sampling of the great ways God has skilled and gifted the ladies in my life. And the list would get long if I also mentioned the skills and giftedness of the women in the local church I get to serve.

God created women for his glory. In fact, his word has...

Read Part 1.

As we contemplate God’s perfections, we need to pay attention to what God has disclosed about Himself, linking these qualities together as they are linked together in His person. The perspectival aspect that is so important to grasp when we are dealing with the attributes should be remembered.

Millard Erickson actually criticizes the great Puritan Stephen Charnock for seeming to compartmentalize the attributes of God. When we are dealing with the perfections—whether it be the power of God, the presence of God, the holiness of God, or His patience, love, justice, grace, mercy, truth, eternality, immutability, omnipotence, etc.—we should see...

Reposted from It Is Written. Read the series.

We have argued that Scripture-quality revelation has ceased with the completion of the New Testament canon.¹ Moreover, we’ve attempted to demonstrate that New Testament prophecy and tongues are forms of Scripture-quality special revelation.² Consequently, Christians should not expect the revelatory gifts of tongues and prophecy today. This is the essence of the cessationist argument. Before we conclude our study, however, I’d like to respond to four objections that are commonly raised against the...

Windows greatly add to the pleasure and agreeableness of a habitation, and so do illustrations make a sermon pleasurable and interesting. A building without windows would be a prison rather than a house, for it would be quite dark, and no one would care to take it upon lease; and, in the same way, a discourse without a parable is prosy and dull, and involves a grievous weariness of the flesh.

The...

I have always thought of jealous adults as childish. But as I thought more about the matter, I came to realize that many of the sins we see so clearly in childhood carry over into adulthood. We simply learn to hide them better. For many of us, the weaknesses and sins we displayed in childhood are still with us: jealousy, laziness, a critical spirit, fits of temper, etc.

The other day, I was teaching our AWANA kids about how Laban was jealous of Jacob. God blessed Laban with wealth (in those days, measured in livestock). Jacob, who started raising livestock with Laban’s rejects, began to catch up to and surpass Laban (Genesis 30-31). Laban and his sons became so jealous that Jacob and his family had to escape for their lives. Had God not warned Laban in a dream, he may well...

Posted with permission from As I See It, which is available free by writing to the editor at dkutilek@gmail.com.

T. Robertson (1863-1934) was a paragon of excellence in Bible scholarship—fully committed to biblical inerrancy, thorough in his research and study, and clear and readable in his writing. He stands even today unrivaled in his mastery of the New Testament.

Because these lectures were prepared for and presented in a seminary setting, they are more academic than “popular,” compared with most of Robertson’s other writings, but not excessively so. Robertson presents the history and views of the Pharisees in their first century context, as...

By John A. Aloisi. Reproduced from DBSJ 21 (2016) with permission. This installment continues Consideration of Original Sin and the Justice of God and concludes. Read the series.

The Providence of God

The providence of God] may be defined the solicitous, everywhere powerful, and continued [intuitus] inspection and oversight of God, according to which he exercises a general care over the whole world, and over each of the creatures and their actions and passions, in a manner that is befitting himself, and suitable for his creatures, for their benefit.¹⁰⁶

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