We Need to Talk
“Umm, we need to talk….” Those are words no one wants to hear. Whether it’s your spouse, your boss, your teacher, or a friend, from the moment you hear those words, to the moment you have the meeting, your life will probably be filled with anxiety. “What did I do?” “What kind of trouble am […]
Nothing New Under the Sun
I recently got a text from a friend of mine. He reminded me of a conversation we had recently where we both pointed out that those outside of the Free Grace movement often lay the charge that the Free Grace view of eternal life cannot be true. We hold that eternal life is a free […]
Saints and Sinners
Yesterday I received a call from a Pastor friend in Nebraska. Someone who attended his church took exception to him referring to believers as sinners. The man said, “Believers are saints, not sinners.” Evidently the man was coming from a Calvinist tradition. He thought that believers cannot stray very far or for very long. Thus […]
Lots of Benefits — Galatians 3:10-14
GES emphasizes the fact that a person receives eternal life by faith alone in Christ alone. This life, by definition, cannot be lost. We know we have it because of the promise of Christ Himself. It is right that we emphasize such things. However, when we believe in Jesus Christ for eternal life we also […]
An Easy Way to Share Your Faith
I was flying back from Portland when I tried an easy way to evangelize, taught to me by good friend, Dr. Steve Lewis, President of Rocky Mountain Seminary. Here’s how it works. If you meet someone who professes to believe in Jesus, you ask them, “Would you like to know an easy way to share […]
Be Careful Whom You Cite
About 25 years ago a friend of mine we will call “Steve” told me that his Southern Baptist Pastor has mentioned the book The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He said it was a great book. So Steve bought the book and read it. Even though Steve was a Free Grace guy, he was […]
Community Hermeneutics and Individual Responsibility
Yesterday I listened to three theologians talk about the authority of Scripture. I was surprised when one of them said, “We don’t read the Bible individually. We read it in community.” That sounded postmodern to me. The speakers did not go on to give a clear explanation of what this meant. I thought it meant […]
Is the Godman a Contradiction
Is it a contradiction to say that Jesus is both 100% God and 100% man? I was talking to a fellow believer who said it was a contradiction, but that he believed it anyway. I tried to explain why it wasn’t a contradiction at all, and that if it were, he literally couldn’t believe it. […]
Paradoxical Evangelism
A psychologist friend recently came back from a missions trip to Muslim Africa. He said he used the “paradoxical intervention technique” while evangelizing and found it worked. It went something like this… My friend starts talking to a Muslim shopkeeper and mentions he’s a Christian from America. Shopkeeper: Do you Christians really believe in three […]
The Mormon View of Heaven
We recently (Mar-Apr 2017) published an article by me about heaven and hell in our magazine, Grace in Focus. I showed that believers will live forever not in heaven, but on the new earth. I received this email question: “I just read the article on heaven and hell. Wow. The Mormons have believed that for […]