Archive – 2012

As a pastor, over the years I had my fair share of people approach me to find out if we were a "courtship" church or a "dating" church. The people invariably would tell me that their approach was "the biblical way." I eventually become leery of such claims given that…
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When my college boyfriend (now husband) Eric told me he was changing his graduate school plans from law school to seminary I was surprised, but surprisingly unresistant. I certainly had no idea what I was getting myself into. As I adjusted to the idea, I explored his desire to attend…
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Where Can I Find God's Word? Q&A 3–4 Statistics can be misleading if they are abstracted from the moment they are calculated. But in that moment, they reveal a glimpse of reality. The well-known church growth leader, George Barna, provides us an opportunity to glimpse at the sad reality of…
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How Can I Know God Exists? Q&A 2 We exist to glorify and enjoy God. But that begs the question of whether there are reasons for belief in a god in the first place. There are three offered in Q&A 2: the light of conscience, the light of creation, and…
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Why Do I Exist? Q&A 1 Our Ultimate Question “What is the chief and highest end of man?” This is our ultimate question and should be the heartbeat of who we are, thinking of it daily. This is what it is all about as a Christian. To have a “chief…
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  I am thankful for the invitation to contribute to the Valiant for Truth blog. In the series that follows, I will be offering Meditations on the Larger Catechism, which will include exposition and application of this wonderful statement of Christian teaching from our Reformed Protestant tradition. A Meaty Catechism…
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Foreign missions is undoubtedly one of the primary tasks of the church. After all, it was Christ who commanded his church to evangelize the nations in the Great Commission.  Moreover, we know that the apostle Paul was one who had a great zeal for missions.  But if we were to…
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The New Testament has no category for someone who is a believer in Jesus Christ but who is not also a member of a local church. The reason is so obvious that we take it for granted. Since all true believers become members of the body of Christ by virtue…
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Closely related to the doctrines of justification and sanctification is the subject of good works. One of the most common objections raised by critics of the biblical doctrine of justification by faith alone is this: “If we are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, on account of Christ alone,…
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It is not until we understand what it means to be justified, that we are in any position to discuss sanctification, which is that life-long process through which the old habit of sin (what we call “indwelling sin”) is progressively weakened and the new nature (given us by virtue of…
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