The primary work of the Holy Spirit today in a Christian’s life is his sanctifying believers to be “spiritual”—to be characterized by inner life and external behavior that conforms to the will of God. However, another result attributed often to the Spirit in the New Testament is gifting. Some gifting was special empowerment for leadership […]

Many Christians today would tell you that if the Holy Spirit is working in your life, then you will experience extraordinary manifestations. But is that really the main way the Holy Spirit works? By far, the dominant action attributed to the Holy Spirit with relation to every Christian is his work of sanctification. In the […]

Likely the most important truth about the Holy Spirit’s active work that we must remember is that the Holy Spirit always works through his Word. Through his illuminating power, the Spirit opens our minds and hearts to accept and submit to the authority of the Word that he inspired. And thus it is through such […]

It is no secret that the Holy Spirit’s work today is one of the most misunderstood doctrines, and this is certainly the case with regard to what the Spirit is doing every day in a Christian’s life. When Christians think of the Holy Spirit’s work, they usually think of miraculous works. But the most prominent […]

There is some debate as to whether with Spirit baptism (mentioned 11 times in the NT), the Holy Spirit is the agent of baptism or the medium of baptism. While viewing the Holy Spirit as the agent of Spirit baptism is a grammatical possibility in some texts, such as the key text of 1 Corinthians […]

Many of the Holy Spirit’s works in history unique in unfolding God’s eternal plan in past history. The purpose of ordering the plans of God accomplished by the Spirit through creation, revelation, and special empowerment have been finished. Creation is complete, the Spirit-inspired Word is complete, and Spirit empowerment functioned at key transitional periods in […]

One of the Holy Spirit’s primary works has been to give revelation to key leaders of God’s people in the progress of God’s redemptive history, culminating in Holy Scripture, which was written by men who were carried along by the Holy Spirit. But the Holy Spirit also gave some of these same leaders special empowerment […]

While creation is the Holy Spirit’s first act in Scripture, the overwhelmingly dominant work attributed to the Spirit in both Testaments is the giving of revelation. Scripture frequently attributes direct revelation from God given to prophets to the person of the Holy Spirit. Joseph was able to interpret Pharaoh’s dreams because the Spirit of God […]

The first instance of the Spirit’s work appears in the opening verses of Scripture. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. (Gn […]

Ultimately, current expectations concerning the Holy Spirit’s work in worship must derive, not from experience, but from Scripture. Too often in modern evangelicalism, expectations regarding how the Holy Spirit works are based upon anecdotes, stories, or other testimonies of people’s experiences rather on what the Bible actually teaches. Unfortunately, this is just as true of […]

Contemporary evangelicalism, I believe, has been thoroughly Pentecostalized with the expectation that if the Holy Spirit is active and working, then we will witness extraordinary effects ranging from direct revelation, special gifting, and emotional euphoria. In addition to receiving new revelation from the Holy Spirit, many professing Christians today also believe that the Holy Spirit […]

I am convinced that contemporary Evangelicalism has been Pentecostalized in significant ways that even many non-charismatics don’t recognize. One significant way this reveals itself even among those who would claim to be cessationists is in common evangelical expectations regarding how God speaks to us and how he reveals his will to us. It is very […]

“Our church’s worship is pretty formal, but I prefer Holy Spirit-led worship.” Such was a comment I overheard once by a young evangelical describing his church’s worship service, illustrating a very common perception by many evangelicals today—if the Holy Spirit actively works in worship, the results will be something extraordinary, an experience “quenched” by too […]

Meu objetivo é convencê-lo de que é importante que a música faça parte de sua grade de ensino domiciliar. Eu quero persuadi-lo de que a música é essencial para o desenvolvimento educacional de seus filhos. Muitos, talvez, já reconheçam os benefícios da música na vida das crianças. Entretanto outros pensam que a música é simplesmente […]

My goal in this essay is to convince you that it is important that music be a part of your homeschool. My goal is to persuade you that music is essential to your children’s educational development. For you this may not be necessary—you recognize the benefits of music in the lives of your children. But […]

Stories shape us. When we read a story, we enter a world that the author has created and thus become shaped by that world. Experiencing the world of the story forms our imaginations of reality, our perceptions and affections, and even our worldview and beliefs. The same is true—perhaps even more so—with the stories of […]

Was Jesus born in the bleak midwinter? Understood as poet Christina Rosetti meant it, the answer to the question is, Yes. English poet Christina Rossetti penned the poem, originally titled “A Christmas Carol,” sometime before 1871 at the request of William James Stillman, editor of Scribner’s Monthly, where the poem was first published in January 1872. The […]

Advent is upon us! This is a wonderful time of year to both remember the prophecies regarding Christ’s first coming and anticipate his coming again. If all of the prophecies concerning his first coming were fulfilled with complete literalness, we can have confidence that those prophecies yet to be fulfilled will also come to pass […]

Ask most Americans, and December marks the beginning of Christmas. When are the 12 Days of Christmas? Why, they’re December 14–25, the days leading up to Christmas Day. But on the contrary, in the Christian tradition, the Twelve Days actually refer to the celebration of Christ’s nativity—also called “Christmastide”—between Christmas (December 25) and Epiphany (January […]

One of the fundamental assumptions in modern evangelical worship is an emphasis upon authenticity in worship. This comes in several different forms, but it often manifests itself in an insistence that whatever expressions of worship are most natural and “real” to a given worshiper are by their very nature, therefore, acceptable. The implication is also […]

In 1863 President Abraham Lincoln established an annual national holiday of Thanksgiving to be observed on the last Thursday in November. Most of us look forward to this holiday, a day on which we eat good food, enjoy time with family and friends, and perhaps watch some football. And we will probably set aside at […]

Though during this present age kingdom and cultus (God’s worshiping community) are separated, God intends one day to join them together under the rule of his Anointed One. The question for us is, of course, where we currently fit in this plan of God for a holy theocracy, a perfect union of kingdom and cultus […]

God created man to be a king and priest in his garden sanctuary, an extension of the palace/temple of heaven. Adam failed, however, and he was cast out of God’s sanctuary. In the interim, between the First Adam’s failure and the Second Adam’s success, the curse resulted in a separation between kingdom and cultus (the […]

When we witness terrible atrocities on earth, we must interpret them in light of the heavenly reality. Heaven is a palace from which God rules sovereign over all, and heaven is a temple where he is worshiped as he ought. This is the reality. How, then, do these visions of God in his heavenly palace/temple […]

You don’t have to turn on the news or visit a news web site very long to get very depressed. We live in a day of despair, threat of war, violence, murder, poverty, sickness, abortion, waning morality, injustice, and racial tensions. Even from the perspective of the unbelieving world, things look pretty bleak. But, contrary […]

Should Christians care about their bodies? How much emphasis should we place upon bodily exercise? Some professing Christians in past history have argued that the body is bad—we don’t need to give attention to the body, we just need to focus on spiritual things. But notice what Paul says in 1 Timothy 4:8: “Bodily training […]

On Saturday, October 7, Israel suffered the worst terrorist attack in its history. People around the world watched in horror as Hamas launched around 5,000 rockets into Israel, and Palestinian militants broke through checkpoints and border fences into Israel, proceeding to massacre hundreds of men, women, and children and taking others as hostages. As of […]

Christians ought to sing all the psalms—including the imprecatory psalms—because the psalms are deeply rooted in confidence that God is the Sovereign King of Kings, and therefore to sing them helps form within us a hope-filled longing for the Return of the King. We who have already submitted to the sovereign King of Kings are […]

Many Christians struggle over whether we should be singing imprecatory psalms in our current age of grace. Should we be singing, “Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock” (Ps 137:9)? One major theme in the book of psalms that helps us to understand why we should sing […]

There are several fundamental reasons many churches don’t sing the Psalms today, and I wrote my book, Musing on God’s Music, in order to help correct some of those reasons. But one key reason Christians shy away from some of the psalms is the sometimes violent imprecatory language found in them. If Christians today do […]

Why is it so important to have our motivation right about how we live in society? Why is it important that we don’t try to motivate ourselves and others with grand ambitions of societal transformation? First, God never promised grand societal transformation, and so if we make that our goal, it can lead to deep […]

When the prophet Isaiah “saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up,” what he saw was the reality of God’s heavenly temple: “and the train of his robe filled the temple.” Heaven is a royal palace from which God sovereignly rules, but it is also a holy temple, filled with God’s glory. […]

Churches as formal, local institutions have been given a very specific, singular mission in this age, best articulated in the Great Commission of Matthew 28:19–20. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe […]

Christ promised in his prayer to the Father in John 17 that he would give his disciples—and, by extension, the church they would establish—a mission; he prayed, “As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world” (Jn 17:18). After his resurrection, he said something similar to his disciples in […]

“Our church’s worship is pretty formal, but I prefer Holy Spirit-led worship.” Such was the comment I overheard recently by a young evangelical describing his church’s worship service, illustrating a very common perception by many evangelicals today—if the Holy Spirit actively works in worship, the results will be something extraordinary, an experience “quenched” by too […]

What would it mean for our worship to be truly shaped by Scripture? Christians are people of the book. Conservative Evangelical Christians, in particular, demand that their beliefs and lives be governed by Scripture. God’s inspired Word is “profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God […]

The regulative principle has long been associated with Reformed traditions that trace their heritage to John Calvin and the Swiss Reformation. This principle, which states that for church practice, whatever is not prescribed in Scripture is forbidden, contrasts with the Lutheran and Anglican normative principle, which holds that whatever is not forbidden in Scripture is […]

The immediate causes for Reformation in various regions, as well as what caused divisions among various Reformation figures, are diverse. However, much of what lay at the core of what both unified Reformers in their reaction against the Roman Catholic Church and what ended up dividing them in the end, involved theology and practice of […]

Believers from the earliest years of Christianity—especially those coming out of Judaism—struggled with how to understand the relationship between Israel’s worship, Christian worship, and the real worship of heaven. In fact, the confusion escalated to such a point that some apostatized from Christianity in favor of returning to the worship of their Jewish heritage. The […]

“Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.” This ancient hymn captures three eras of worship: as it was in the beginning—the worship of Old Testament Israel, as it is now—the worship of New […]

As Christians, we are are first and foremost citizens of God’s Redemptive Kingdom; we have submitted ourselves to Christ’s rule, and our mission is to bring others into that citizenship through evangelism and discipleship. But as human beings, we are also still citizens of the universal Common Kingdom along with every other person in the […]

Likely one of the more challenging issues in the Psalms for modern Christians is the language of lament and even imprecation present throughout these God-inspired songs. Surely, this side of the cross, that kind of language has no place for Christians, right? Consider Psalm 137, with its dark themes and horrid imprecation: 1 By the […]

Do you ever feel like everything around us is crumbling? You look around and wickedness seems to be everywhere, and you wonder: where is God in all this? And not only that, they’re prospering! One of the core purposes of the psalms is to help us navigate this kind of reality, which has indeed been […]

Recently there has been a lot of talk about the importance of focusing on the church’s mission. That’s good as far as it goes—we’ve been given a mission by Jesus to make disciples of all nations (Matt 28:19), and so we ought to continually commit to that mission and find ways to join with others […]

Scripture contains many passages that are difficult to interpret—even Peter said so (2 Pet 3:16). What is “baptism for the dead” in 1 Corinthians 15? Who were the Nephilim of Genesis 6? What did Peter mean when he said that Jesus “went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison” (1 Pet 3:19)? What does the […]

The Covid era was certainly a challenge for many reasons. Particularly during the first couple of weeks after the virus broke out across the world, most people understandably were very cautious. Because of how the virus appeared to be worse for certain demographics, “fifteen days to slow the spread” and allow hospitals to prepare seemed […]

Psalm 1 began by saying that a truly blessed person will not allow his image of the good life to be shaped by the wicked image of blessedness; Psalm 2 shows us what that wicked image is. It shows us the counsel of the ungodly—their image of the good life. Why do the nations rage,and […]

Do you have a mission statement for your family? Every successful business has a mission statement that carefully articulates the company’s central vision and primary objectives. Yet the mission statement does not exist simply to be placed in an employee manual or on a plaque in the conference room. It exists to set the parameters […]

There’s a line in Wodehouse’s Joy in the Morning in which Bertie says to Jeeves, “It was one of those cases where you approve the broad, general principle of an idea but can’t help being in a bit of a twitter at the prospect of putting it into practical effect.” I think there are a […]

What does it really mean to serve the Lord? Unfortunately, there is actually a lot of confusion about the proper answer to that question among evangelicals today. Some Christians believe that the only way to really serve the purposes and plans of God is what is sometimes referred to as “full time Christian service.” All […]