I have been spending a ton of time lately thinking about the contours of spiritual reformation in the 21st century.  Let me suggest that there are four main areas of human life in which the church in every age (family by family, and also as a communal whole) is called to work out reformation.
(1) Contemplation: [...]

I must admit that The God Who Is There by Francis Schaeffer is a surprising book.  It’s not I was unaware of Schaeffer’s reputation as a great apologist (a description he would be uncomfortable with; he thought of himself as an evangelist first), it’s just that the first half of the book does not prepare [...]

One thing is immediately obvious. In the mind of our Lord, the kingdom of God and the announcement of that kingdom are not mere information. This is no infomercial: “We interrupt the normal broadcasting of your life to announce that the kingdom of God has come near. Thank you. We now resume our normal [...]

All this and much more lies back of Jesus’ proclamation as we return finally to Mark 1 and listen again to him say, “The time has been fulfilled.” He is saying quite simply that the decisive threshold of fulfillment of everything spoken by the law and the prophets has already been crossed. That is the [...]

In the diner, for perhaps the millionth time, Phil Connors (Bill Murray) in the movie Groundhog Day says, “Well maybe the real God uses tricks, or maybe he’s not omnipotent, he’s just been around so long he knows everything.” This assertion leads to an intriguing question. Are God’s thoughts not our thoughts only because God [...]

To borrow a phrase from Martyn Lloyd-Jones, the revelation of God in the person of Jesus Christ, given to us in the Scriptures, is truth unchanged, unchanging.  Yet while this truth is unchanging, the cultural and philosophical climate each Christian finds himself in changes, sometimes dramatically, from generation to generation.  Each of us has to [...]

Picking up where we left off yesterday, Ben Miller lays out the foundational idea at the center of the Scriptures.  Taken from the Introduction to The Kindgom Has Drawn Near: Studies In The Gospel Jesus Preached.
What I want to explore with you in this and the following three studies is an idea and a reality [...]

In the Introduction of The Kingdom Has Drawn Near: Studies In The Gospel Jesus Preached, Ben Miller begins by telling us of his fascination with the “shaping power of ideas”.  But the ideas of humans are nothing compared to the ideas of their Creator:
The Bible is a book that overflows with great ideas, and that [...]