Word of God

Grace for Transformation

Mark Johnston
Apr 16, 2020
Every Christian can readily acknowledge, ‘I’m not what I used to be; but I am not yet what I will be!’ We are all very much a work in progress. This is reinforced by the verb tenses the Bible uses to refer to different aspects of salvation: we ‘have been saved’ (Eph 2.8), ‘…are being saved’ (1Co 15...

Quarantined Discipleship

John Biegel
Apr 9, 2020
The apostle Paul spent quite a bit of time in prison. In Acts, Paul is imprisoned in Philippi (Acts 16), and then spends the last quarter of the book in various prisons—Jerusalem, Caesarea—ultimately ending the book under house arrest in Rome (Acts 21–28). The letters of Ephesians, Philippians,...

The Lost Sheep of the House of Israel

Mark Johnston
Dec 26, 2019
There are many occasions when what seem like throwaway remarks from Jesus say far more than we may realise. One in particular is heard in our Lord’s exchange with the Canaanite woman in the region of Tyre and Sidon (Mt 15.21-28), where he tells her, ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house...

The First Five Years Podcast

Jonathan Master
Dec 16, 2019
The First Five Jonathan and James welcome their friend Stephen Unthank. He’s pastor of Greenbelt Baptist Church in Maryland, and a contributing writer for PlaceForTruth.org . Stephen shares his experiences as a relatively new pastor…the joys and challenges of the calling…and, how it all lined up...

Worship and the Christian's True Identity

Jonathan Landry Cruse
Oct 25, 2019
The whole of the Christian life can be summed up in these two little words (favorites of the Apostle Paul): "in Him." Our union with Christ is the definitive aspect of our salvation and our status before God and others, and therefore our identity must be found in Christ. Of course, this is easier...

The Necessity of Preaching

Ryan McGraw
Apr 11, 2017
Salvation is an expansive term. It essentially means "safety." Salvation includes the application of Christ's work from the new birth, through faith and repentance, to Justification, adoption, sanctification, and glorification. Christians share in Christ's benefits because they are united to him...

The Missing Message

Nick Batzig
Sep 28, 2016
While preparing talks for a forthcoming Reformation Conference, I happened across Heiko Oberman's outstanding 1961 Theology Today lecture, " Preaching and the Word in the Reformation ," in which he set down what he believed to have been the three most important aspects of the preaching among the...

Justification by God's Word of Promise Alone

Aaron Denlinger
Mar 14, 2016
"One thing," Martin Luther writes in the Freedom of a Christian (1520), "and only one thing, is necessary for Christian life, righteousness, and freedom. That one thing is _______." Knowing Luther to be the author, we're quick to assume that "faith" belongs in the blank. And not without reason...

The Visible Word

Jason Helopoulos
Nov 6, 2014
I was visiting a church once and heard an exchange between a pastor and one of his congregants that has stayed with me ever since. A woman asked the pastor before the service, "Is the video this morning going to make me laugh or cry? It always does one or the other." The pastor was quick...