New Hearts for God’s New Covenant People

Redemptive history is an amazing thing. You can see God’s goodness and grace run through the pages of Holy Scripture. Goodness and grace are inescapable realities. You’d think God’s people would respond with gratefulness and thankfulness. And yet, God’s people, the very recipients of God’s goodness and grace, are all-too-often ungrateful, unthankful, and down-right rebellious.…

The Words of Life and Death: Choose to Speak Life

I cringed. Surrounded by a group of women of all ages—empty nesters, middle-aged and young moms—one young mom was expressing her struggles with her preschoolers. The constant discipline, the tantrums over “trivial” things, and the exhaustion from late nights with early mornings were wearing on her. Other young moms in the room quickly jumped in…

Baptist Theology: A Four Century Study

James Leo Garrett. Baptist Theology: A Four-Century Study (Mercer, 2009). $50.57 Baptists find their beginnings in the gospel of Jesus Christ. That is, the Baptist people are properly people who have believed in Jesus as the Savior and Satisfier of their souls, professing that faith publicly through believers baptism. Yet, the appearance of what we…

Reading the Bible for Application

I want to start by saying that there are many things to look for when reading the Bible. We can read the Bible to teach us about God, we can read it to get an understanding of redemptive history, we can read it to see its interconnections, we can read it to trace a particular…

God Saves Those Who Give Thanks

Many Christians have written about thanksgiving. I’ve even written a post about thankfulness on this site. Often, one reads about how thanksgiving is an anecdote to much of our problems, or how Christians are commanded in Scripture to give thanks in all things. These principles are true and good for us. But my husband’s most…

Christian Hospitality as Happy Hospitality by Dave Zuleger

Introduction: What is Hospitality? As you go to the word to define hospitality you find the idea of “welcome.” We see in the book of Acts that as people went on missionary journeys they were welcomed into the home of others there temporarily to stay. We see the idea of welcoming guests and strangers (Hebrews…