He Breathed on Them and Said, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:22)
A friend just sent in this super question: I just finished listening to your podcast about repentance and baptism for the forgiveness of sins and had a question about when the disciples received the Holy Spirit. I always thought the Holy Spirit was given to the disciples in John 20 when Jesus breathed on them in […]
J. Dwight Pentecost on Eternal Security and the Promise of Life
Here is a great quote from J. Dwight Pentecost, writing in 1965, on why the promise of eternal life implies eternal security: The promise of God is a basis for our security. We go into a familiar passage such as John 3:16 where it is made so clear: “…God so loved the world, that he […]
Is Context Really That Important? (Matt 24:14)
One of the emphases of Free Grace Theology is its insistence on looking at the context of a verse when we study it. Hopefully, we challenge ourselves and others by the light that the context sheds on the verse. As a result, we often find ourselves changing views we previously held and invite others to […]
J. Dwight Pentecost on Salvation
I’m writing a journal article on what Dallas Theological Seminary professors taught about salvation to the general public, from 1965-1995. I’m looking at books by DTS professors, aimed at a general reading audience. I want to know whether they leaned Free Grace or Lordship. (Be sure to subscribe to the journal to get these longer […]
An Evangelical Postmodern Understanding of the Bible
A friend asked me what I thought about pastor Brian Zahnd and his book Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God. I had not heard of him or the book. So I got the book and I was disturbed by what I read. Zahnd thinks that the Bible is filled with contradictions and pagan […]
What Are Some Free Grace Distinctives?
Someone on Facebook asked what were some Free Grace distinctives. Here are ten things that I think make Free Grace distinct from other traditions. There are different schools of thought within the Free Grace movement. These ten things reflect our corner of the movement: 1) Saving faith is persuasion that the saving message is true, […]
Can Legalistic Thinking Explain All Suffering? (Job 3-14)
Kūmāré is a 2011 documentary about a New Jersey man who pretends to be a guru from India—complete with accent—to see if he can get a following. The documentary is painful to watch because he does gather a following, and the people are totally convinced that Kūmāré is a spiritual man, with spiritual powers, who […]
We’re All Barabbas
One of my favorite novels is Barabbas by Par Lagerkvist, winner of the Nobel prize for literature. The novel imagines what happened to Barabbas after he was released: “He was about thirty, powerfully built, with a sallow complexion, a reddish beard and black hair. His eyebrows also were black, his eyes too deep-set, as though […]
The Husband-Wife Relationship
A friend, who is a Free Grace pastor and Bible scholar, sent me an interesting note about a blog I wrote on Eph 6:1-4. Here is a portion of his note: Too many weddings have the preacher preaching on the “Wives submit to your husbands” theme. Based upon Eph 5:21, “submit to one another in […]
A Is for “Able to Believe”
Bob and I wrote an article called “TULIP or ASSURE?” in which we briefly outlined what we thought was the Biblical alternative to the Five Points of Calvinism (and Arminianism). Our thinking has grown since then. Previously, we defined “A” as “All have sinned.” That was too general a statement. I now prefer “Able to […]