Are You Predestined? (Ephesians 1–3)
By Cal Staggers In his letter to the Ephesians, does Paul say that you or I are predestined to be adopted as God’s sons and to obtain an inheritance in the kingdom? Let’s use exegesis to define the words and terms in Eph 1:1–3:6 and try to understand Paul’s argument using only the letter itself. […]
Q&A
By Anthony Badger Calvinism Question. I see a lot of people turning to Calvinism. I believe God in His sovereignty gave us free will, and He does intervene on earth, but that doesn’t take away our free will. I just wanted to ask what the church believed before Augustine (300-400 years after Christ)? Also, Calvinists […]
Noah: Saved by Faith and by Works
By Shawn Willson In late 2021, I preached through the story of Noah for the second time in my pastoral ministry. As I began the series, I took a moment to look back on what I wrote on Noah in 2009. I cringed when I saw the title of the second sermon in the series. […]
Simon, Peter, or Cephas?
By Laurence M. Vance “But when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed” (Gal 2:11). Although this verse seems rather inconspicuous, it is actually one of the most significant verses in the New Testament. This is not to say that Paul meant it to be […]
Parting with the Theologians
By Andrew Engelman You Can’t Be Sure? They threw it all at me—all of it. They said that before the fall of man, God ordained who would be saved. They told me I was dead, a corpse, unable to receive the gift of grace unless it had already been chosen for me. I had to […]
Pew Card Evangelism
By Marcia Hornok Recently I attended a large Bible church, well known in Evangelical circles for expository sermons and the longevity of its lead pastor’s ministry. He has a vast online presence; his popular study Bible has been distributed worldwide, and he founded a seminary to train pastors. Enjoying the organ music while waiting for […]
Top 5 Reasons Not to Tear Down Your House
By Summer Stevens I watched him walk up the stairs to our room. It was the third weekend in a row we’d had a stupid argument, and this one was on me and we both knew it. I flopped onto the couch and sighed in frustration. Immediately a verse flashed into my mind: “A wise […]
Free Grace Gives Better Reasons to Obey God
By Shawn Willson A Common Accusation Someone recently shared with me an article by R.C. Sproul entitled, “What Is Saving Faith?” (www.ligonier.org/blog/what-savingfaith/). In Sproul’s definition, he made the following statement defining the Free Grace view of saving faith from his perspective: “for antinomians, faith minus works equals justification.” The Free Grace community would proudly proclaim […]
The Return of Christ in 1 Thessalonians: Chapel Hill Regional Conference, 2021
Heaven and Hell: A History of the Afterlife
Heaven and Hell: A History of the Afterlife. By Bart D. Ehrman. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 2020. 326 pp. Hardcover, $28.00. What can an agnostic historian with atheist leanings tell us about heaven and hell? To those of us who believe the Bible, not much. Yet, he can tell us two important things. […]