I received the news of Pastor Timothy Keller’s passing while sitting on a plane heading to Northern Ireland. I teared up and found it hard to contain myself, which surprised...
To whom is Christ’s blood being paid, as a ransom or a price, for guilty and enslaved sinners? Who is receiving the ransom? In the early church some of the church fathers taught that Jesus, through his atoning death, had paid the price to Satan, and this view has in modern times been reinforced through C.S. Lewis’ Narnia tale. But the Bible provides us with a better answer to our question.
Children mimic those around them learning to walk, to talk, and to live.“You can be like God,” says the world, and yet the child who has been taught will be able to quickly respond, “no, there is only one true God,” and “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.” Who is teaching your child, mama? Is it you, or is it the world?
Evangelical faith seems to be waning in the Nordics. It is tempting to look back in nostalgia, dream of some magical intervention from above, or imagine that more analysis might in itself solve the problem. But maybe the best first response is something else entirely; something counterintuitive ...
There is probably no more defeated issue in Nordic Christianity than the question of church discipline, even among the most conservative voices. So is this really necessary? Does the New Testament really exhort local congregations to practice church discipline? The answer, unequivocally, is yes.
The evangelical churches of the Nordics that want to hold fast to the gospel often find that they must take a clear stance of resistance to the invitations of secular Nordic culture. Many churches claim to stand on “sola scriptura,” but when encouraged to preach sequentially through a book of the Bible, one is often met with a yawn or a sneer. We must have courage to stand firm even in the face of cultural disdain, while not giving into a cynical marginalized mentality.
I received the news of Pastor Timothy Keller’s passing while sitting on a plane heading to Northern Ireland. I teared up and found it hard to contain myself, which surprised...
I am, of course, happy that my neighbors are happy. But I grieve for their godlessness. Without the gospel, without God, no person, however happy, has any real hope. But people here don’t seem to care. Perhaps more apatheist than atheist, they simply have other things to worry about. The prosperity, luxuries, and abundant ease of modern life distracts the people of the Nordics, turning their attention from the eternal to the temporal. And they seem to be doing fine.
Being theologically driven allows pastoral love to remain the goal of our teaching. As we make disciples, we desire to build our people’s confidence in the life view their Bibles give them and the ways it meets the needs of their neighbors and family, allowing for organic connections to arise from various gospel themes to connect to a whole view of truth and life.
Without knowing it, we can filter our reading of the Bible and our theology through a distorted lens: yes, God saves us through Jesus, but does he actually keep us at arm’s length because he finds us repulsive? We must talk about shame because it is there Jesus meets us, and it is so much better than what we can imagine.
We tend to do a very good job of preparing for a baby’s arrival, but isn’t it funny that as we prepare for birth, we might actually miss the fact that we will be nurturing this child for life! Women, let us think on the bigger picture: the lifelong privilege of investing in children for the glory of God.
In the Nordics, we are blessed with spectacular nature: majestic fjords, vast forests, arctic lands encased in ice and snow, megafauna, and more. But why are we so enchanted by these northern lands? Why do we long for the awe instilled by fjords? Why do walks through quiet forests calm our restless souls?
