283 results found
Podcast: Have We Domesticated the Cross? (Jeremy Treat)
Jeremy Treat talks about how the doctrine of atonement is often misunderstood by believers and unbelievers alike and about the impact that it should make on our day to day lives as followers of Christ.
Since the cross was a monstrous symbol of death and defeat in the first century, it is no wonder that early Christians were mocked for worshiping a crucified Savior.
10 Things You Should Know about the Atonement
Through his death on the cross Jesus accomplishes reconciliation, victory, removal of shame, justification, adoption, propitiation, glorification, healing—and much more!
Jesus Said More about Hell Than Anyone in the Bible
The word wrath is important for understanding what Jesus meant by hell. Hell is not simply the natural consequence of rejecting God.
11 Reasons Jesus Is the Perfect Husband
John Owen argues that we live out our friendship with the Father with his love at the center, but when it comes to the Son, it’s all about his grace.
Practically, How Do We Abide in Jesus?
Jesus commands that we go on repenting, coming, believing, loving, and listening. The transformation of repentance continues. Coming to Jesus again and again continues.
Why Did God’s Beautiful Plan of Redemption Involve Something So Ugly?
When we consider carefully what Jesus was doing on that old, rugged cross, we can understand why it was so ugly. To atone for our transgressions, Jesus had to shoulder our guilty sins.
10 Things You Should Know about the Beatitudes
The Beatitudes set the moral and spiritual bar so high that we cannot possibly live up to them—and in our best moments, we know this.
Podcast: How to Explain the Hypostatic Union to a Fifth Grader (Stephen Wellum)
Stephen Wellum explains where we see the hypostatic union taught in Scripture and highlights why all Christians would benefit from taking time to think carefully about Jesus being fully God and fully man.
13 Times Jesus Amazed His Hearers in 2 Words or Less
Look at the red letter edition of the Bible! There are pages of verses in red. Treasure-filled treatises. But sometimes, Jesus gave a full, significant, amazing, life-giving answer in two words or less.
Growth in Christ Is Not Just Personal Improvement
Jesus is not a concept. Not an ideal. Not a force. Growing in Christ is a relational, not a formulaic, experience. Who then is this person?
Why Jesus Warns Us to Be Alert for His Second Coming
The appearing of Christ becomes a sudden trap not because it could happen any moment, but because the spiritually unseeing will be blind to Christ’s coming.
What Does It Mean to Live a Life Worthy of the Gospel?
On the one hand, here is the gospel. And on the other hand, here is your life. And Paul’s exhortation is this: Live in such a way that your life “weighs the same” as the gospel!
How to Have the Mind of Christ
It is all very well to say that being “worthy of the gospel of Christ” means being restored to the image of God so that we begin to reflect the character of the Lord Jesus. But what does that mean?
Where Christ Isn’t Being Treasured, He’s Being Used
Christ as a treasure is not a slice of Christ. It is every dimension of Christ—all of Christ—making up the totality of his infinite value.
What Does Perfect Anger Look Like?
Christ got angry and still gets angry, for he is the perfect human, who loves too much to remain indifferent. And this righteous anger reflects his heart, his tender compassion.
10 Key Bible Verses on the Humanity of Jesus
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
Podcast: How Does Life Change If God Is Actually My Friend? (Mike McKinley)
Mike McKinley talks about what it means for us as Christians to be friends of God, about the friendship that Jesus had on earth, and about what it looks like for us to lean into our friendship with God.
Knowing the Power of His Resurrection
Do you strain with all of your might to see things the way Christ sees them? Do you strain to please him in everything? Do you strain to understand everything through him?
10 Key Bible Verses on the Divinity of Jesus
Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.”
What Jesus Saw When He Looked at Peter after the Rooster Crowed
When we peer into the word of God, we see who God is: his character is revealed to us. At the same time, we see who we are: we see ourselves in light of God’s character.
How the Holy Spirit Helps Us Read Scripture
Following Jesus by faith (i.e., discipleship) is the foundation of understanding. We don’t simply understand and then follow. We come to understand as we follow. This is the work of the Spirit.
What Does the New Testament Mean That Jesus Will Come Soon?
What would it mean for an infallible spokesman (an apostle!) of the Lord Jesus, who cannot predict the time, to say that Jesus is coming soon?
What Did Jesus Teach about Discipleship?
Jesus’s instruction about discipleship applies to all (i.e., not simply the twelve) who want to follow him and includes three elements: denying oneself, taking up one’s cross, and following him.
What Is Distinct about the Theology of Mark?
Certainly Mark is the Gospel that has most in common with the other Gospels. But even Mark has some distinctives that are worth noting and that help us to read Mark as Mark.
The Most Shocking Story We've Ever Heard
You will never find anything so shocking, so strange, so weird and spellbinding as the story of the incarnation of the Son of God.
Podcast: There’s More to the Christmas Story Than You Think (Benjamin L. Gladd)
Benjamin Gladd talks about how the Gospel of Luke draws on the riches of the Old Testament to reveal truly amazing things about the identity of Jesus, Old Testament prophecy, and the real meaning of Christmas.
Who Were the Magi, and Why Did They Worship Jesus? (Matthew 2)
Popular Christian images of the magi clash with Matthew’s account. The magi were counselors, not kings, and while they bore three gifts, their number (unstated) was large enough to cause a stir in Jerusalem.
However baptism is conducted, we go under the water as a picture of our death with Christ and we rise up from the water as a picture of our resurrection with Christ.
Why Is the Virgin Birth So Important?
The entry and exit miracles carry the same message. First, they confirm that Jesus, though not less than man, was more than man. His earthly life, though fully human, was also divine.