Answering the Problem of Pain
The people of Israel were starving. Their land was rich, but their enemies devoured the produce (Judges 6:4). A young man named Gideon summed up the crisis: “If the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to…
Category Reformation21
Family Worship Is a Matter of Prudence
“The prudent sees danger and hides himself, but the simple go on and suffer for it.” – Proverbs 22:3 Our children are some of the first to grow up in what is indisputably a post-Christian American society. Their peers are…
The Importance of Cultural Liturgies
You have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you. — Augustine As James K. A. Smith reminds us in You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit, Augustine’s prayer reveals several…
Doubt Need Not Be Disastrous
Apologetics requires certainty and confidence. Its basic purpose is conquering doubts cast on the Christian faith. But what about the doubts of Christians? How do we defend a faith that we are not always certain of? Doubt is not a…
How Then Shall We Sing?
I have argued that our worship should glorify God and edify the Christian community. To that end, our songs need to be biblically based, yet also crafted in a way that promotes the active participation of the congregation. I have…
Christmas and the Marmite Effect
Have you ever spread Marmite on toast? It’s a British condiment made from yeast left over from beer brewing. It is dark, thick, and sticky, like a savory molasses. Marmite is hailed as the superhero of sandwich spreads because it’s…
Why the “A” Word Isn’t So Dirty
“Honor your father and mother… that your days may be long, and that it may go well with you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.” Few things seem more American than rebelling against authority. After…
The Bible Is Reliable
One of Billy Graham’s early crises of faith was over whether he could totally trust the Bible. After much struggle he prayed to God, “I’m going to allow faith to go beyond my intellectual questions and doubts, and I will…
Some Suggestions for Songs
In our last post, we saw why songs for congregational singing need to have biblical content, as well as music suitable for active participation. We have also seen how worship should be conducted for the glory of God and the building…
You Can Know God
Apologetics is often associated with the so-called proofs of God’s existence: ontological, cosmological, teleological—and already my head is spinning. But the quest to prove God has several problems. First, it ignores that all people already know God. Even animals can…