Taken on Testimony

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“On a scale of 1 to 10, how’s your pain?”  Often, my kids will come and say they have a headache or a tummy ache, or their throat is sore, or they hurt their knee. I can’t feel their pain, but I can sympathize and guess what it feels like based on my own experiences.  But mostly, I have to take it on testimony. If my kids say they’re in pain,
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More Than a Herd of Pigs (Mark 5:1-20)

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We tack silly cartoons to our office wall. Here’s a recent one we enjoyed:  Poor pig.  The cartoon is referring to the episode in Mark 5:1-20 in which Jesus visited the land of the Gerasenes and met a man who was demon possessed. Long story short, Jesus cast out the demons who then entered a herd of about two thousand pigs and drove them into the sea where they drowned.  The Gerasenes were not pleased.  Think about it
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Grace Is Approachable

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I was listening to a podcast by Paul Zahl entitled “A Disease I Do Not Have the Courage to Name.”  The title comes from a now out-of-print book entitled  My Son Is a Splendid Driver, set during the Great Depression. In it, the protagonist’s mother is given a deadly STD by her husband, a traveling salesman. She feels ashamed—too ashamed to go to church.  “Mother had stopped going to church.
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How Does Satan Work?

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I plan to complete a series of books outlining what I think are the Biblical alternatives to the five points of Calvinism (and Arminianism). Chosen to Serve: Why Election Is to Service, Not to Eternal Life, was my answer to Unconditional Election. I have two more manuscripts in the works—one on Limited Atonement (The Cross: Different Benefits, for Different
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Leaving Sin City (Romans 6:1-2)

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The Red Light district in Amsterdam is one of the most depressing places I’ve ever been. Abby and I had just moved to the city. We loved walking through it. Amsterdam is more like a large village than a city, filled with beautiful architecture, canals, and shops. But it has some ugly parts, too.  We were admiring the town when we turned down
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Grace Will Abound (Romans 6:1-2)

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In Romans 6, Paul makes an argument for why Christians should not continue living in sin. Here is his opening question:  What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? (Romans 6:1-2).  The Greek word for
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The Rich Man, Lazarus, and Samuel

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One of the central texts in the debate over hell is Luke 16—the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus. Actually, whether or not this is a parable is part of the debate.  People who deny eternal conscious torment deny that Jesus’ story depicts a real situation. For example, many annihilationists want to deny it because, for one
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Where Did Abraham Go When He Died (Gen 25:8-9; Luke 16:22-23)?

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I am about a third of the way into writing my book about hell, tentatively entitled, Final Punishment: A Biblical Case for Conscious Eternal Torment. I’m hoping to finish by the 2019 National Conference.  There is so much interesting Biblical information about death and the afterlife in the Bible. The picture is far more complicated than most people assume.  For example, two important Hebrew
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Naming Grace

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“So why did you start coming to this church?” the man asked.  “When I moved to Denton, I started looking for a church, and I saw this one was ‘country-friendly,’” I explained. “I figured if I was going to be in North Texas, I should get that country experience. Of course, I asked the pastor some basic questions about what they believed and it
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The Snow Beneath Your Feet

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This winter break I kept my promise to Zane and Daphne and took them to Canada. I was only supposed to take Daphne, but I managed to save up enough for Zane, too.  The trip went great.  We stayed with my sister in her apartment. My family planned everything for me. I told them some key things I wanted to do, and they got it done. Everyday had
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