Theology

How should addictions be understood? Addiction is usually regarded as a failure of the will, or as a sickness. Lately, the tendency is for the younger, educated generation to embrace the second answer. The idea that addiction is a failure of the will, a sin, from a Christian perspective, is seen as outdated.

If we were to make an assessment of today's Christianity, which kind of sacrifice would we notice more frequently—the kind offered by Cain or by Abel? Cain offered a sacrifice from the fruits of the earth, and Abel from the sheep of his flock. While Abel’s sacrifice was pleasing to God, Cain’s sacrifice was rejected. From the very beginning, God has expressed His...

In ancient Israel, the high priests wore a vest that had two stones on it called the Urim and Thummim. Whenever a question about God’s will was brought to the priest, he would ask God to give the answer. If the stone on the left glowed, it indicated divine approval. If the stone on the right glowed instead, it indicated God’s disapproval.

One of the Bible’s most refined literary and artistic works is the Gospel of John. In recent readings, it increasingly emerges as a gospel of decisive, personal encounters between the Lord Jesus and various individuals.

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. – John 14:27

"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him" (Romans 8:28).

While the historic churches remained at least disinterested in millenarianism, the Apocalypse, and the Parousia—that is to say, when they were not hostile to them—Protestant pluralism allowed for both reluctance[1] and increasingly significant preoccupations with the research and publication of the themes regarding the end of the world.

Trust in God gives clarity to our thinking, so God asks us not to be obsessed with justice, but to be concerned with and delighted by grace.

Even in this secular age, the world’s largest group of religious believers—a full third of Earth’s human population—worships Jesus of Nazareth as the eternal God who appeared in human flesh. Millions more—Muslims, Baha’i, Hindus, Buddhists and others—recognise His unique connection to the Divine, His wisdom and His compassion.

We have trouble understanding and accepting the image of a loving God, as we have grown too familiar with the type of love that offers itself only when it finds in a person the qualities that make them easy to love.

"Yet man is born to trouble as surely as sparks fly upwards" (Job 5:7).

The name of Jesus brings to mind the gift of the incarnate Godhead—their supernatural acts, astonishing wisdom, incomparable goodness, unmitigated innocence, supreme sacrifice, offered salvation, and our only certain hope.

Pliny the Elder wrote, in Naturalis Historia, a well-known adage: "Among [mortals] the only certainty there is is that nothing is certain."[1] Few know that Pliny made this statement in a chapter on the gods.

“We need a bigger vision in prayer. We need God’s vision! Let’s keep praying and daring to ask for more—for God’s glory, that the gospel may go into all the world, into all nations, that Jesus may come!”

In the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, Max Lucado wrote an article summarising the spiritual lessons we can learn from an event that the news described as a "once in a thousand year flood".