The Self-Existent God

Who hath directed the Spirit of the LORD, or being his counsellor hath taught him? With whom took he counsel, and who instructed him, and taught him in the path of judgment, and taught him knowledge, and shewed to him the way of understanding? Isaiah 40:13, 14 God revealed Himself in many ways in His…

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Jesus is King

In my annual “read your Bible” post, I mentioned an “intense” reading schedule I’ve sometimes used. Another pastor suggested it to me and I’ve used it off and on for my personal Bible reading. You can read more about it here, but essentially it involves reading the New Testament in four weeks. When I use…

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Silence Does Not Mean We Are Alone

Malachi is the last book of the Old Testament written about 435 B.C. It would be over 400 years before God would speak again from heaven by sending his Son, Jesus, to be born of the virgin, Mary. It is not insignificant that the Old Testament closes with the word “curse.” Malachi writes, “Behold, I…

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Dispensationalism

FrontLine | November/December 2021 | VOLUME 31 | NUMBER 6 Welcome to Dispensationalism! “Dispensationalism” is a big word, and people struggle to understand its meaning. Some people assume that if you believe in dispensations, then you must be a dispensationalist. But all Christians recognize that God has administered His plan in different ways at different…

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How can a church be healthy with so many views?

“Long-held Christian beliefs about everything from the nature of God to morality have been reshaped and have become unimportant to many people.”1 Mark Dever’s statement is a sad testament to the reality of the church today. As we continue our discussion on the topic of the health of the church, we must consider the beliefs…

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Our Righteous Savior

I think we often take the fact of Christ’s sinlessness for granted. We often emphasize the impeccability of Christ, which means that He could not have sinned. The Bible is clear that Jesus is God. God is perfectly holy, and “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” God cannot sin; therefore, Jesus could…

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Does God destroy people for only one sin?

In his blisteringly skeptical book, The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins gives his view of the God of the Old Testament: “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal,…

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The “Goodness” of Unbelievers

The interpreter of the New Testament faces an apparent contradiction when he reads that Cornelius was a “devout man, and one that feared God,” although he was clearly not yet regenerated, and then hears Paul affirming that “there is none righteous, no, not one. . . . There is none that doeth good, no, not…

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The Hero of the Story is Always God

Everybody loves a good story, and Scripture has some of the best. Try to read through the story of Esther without laughing at the ironies. Try to read through the account of the man born blind (John 9) without crying. Or even better, trying reading out loud through a story with dialogue like Daniel 2,…

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Visualizing the Church

Having something important to say is like landing a private jet in a jungle. You need a nice long runway to land your plane safely. You don’t want to crash! That’s what Paul is doing in Ephesians. From the start of Ch. 1 to the end of Ch. 2, he prepares the way for an…

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