Truth For Life Blog

Few aspects of the Holy Spirit’s ministry have caused greater division in the church than those of Spirit baptism and spiritual fullness. Yet whenever the New Testament speaks of these things, it does so in terms of unity, not division. The baptism and filling with the Holy Spirit, rightly understood, should be sources of the church’s unity.

Topics: Articles

“As we continue to keep the Bible as an open book in front of us, we discover that it is intensely practical.”
—Alistair Begg

Topics: Weekly Wallpaper

Let earth and heaven combine,
Angels and men agree,
To praise, in songs divine,
The incarnate Deity;
Our God contracted to a span,
Incomprehensibly made man.

Topics: Hymns and Worship

H. Norman Wright, a licensed marriage and family counselor, once described a situation that another man had brought to him in the course of his ministry:

A new woman came to work in our office. We struck up an acquaintance and began to talk each day over coffee. In time she began to share the problems in her own marriage and we found that we were both in a position of drifting away from our spouses. We actually found that we communicated better together than with our own spouses. We looked for reasons to be together—we shared similar interests and hobbies. I had no ulterior motives—no sinister plans but I enjoyed our time together as friends.

Topics: Articles

The Lord has need of me,
His soldier I will be;
He gave Himself my life to win,
And so I mean to follow Him,
And serve Him faithfully.
So although the fight be fierce and long,
I’ll carry on—He makes me strong;
And then one day His face I’ll see,
And oh! the joy when He says to me,
“Well done! My brave crusader!”

Topics: Hymns and Worship

Writing to the church in Corinth, Paul described the Holy Spirit’s ongoing work in the believer’s life as follows:

We all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. (2 Cor. 3:18)

Topics: Articles

“I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness.”
—John 12:46

Topics: Weekly Wallpaper

We join our brothers and sisters around the world in mourning the death of Tim Keller. He was, for many of us, an example of sanctified scholarship and pastoral care. His skill in bridging the gap between the truth of the Bible and the skeptical mind was unmatched. We extend our sympathy to his wife Kathy, their sons, and their wider family. There is no question Tim will be greatly missed—but what a legacy he has left us in his writing and in the quality of his life.

Topics: Ministry Updates

Exiled hundreds of miles from Jerusalem, Nehemiah was burdened for his city’s condition. In 586 BC, Babylon had ransacked the City of David, taking God’s people into captivity. Even after Cyrus and the Persians overthrew the Babylonians and allowed some of the Jewish people to return to Jerusalem, efforts to rebuild were precarious (Ezra 4:23)—so much so that the city remained in ruins even decades later. If they were to going to rebuild Jerusalem, Israel needed a vision, and a visionary leader—someone to bring God’s truth to bear on their circumstances. And that leader was Nehemiah.

Topics: Articles

“What is God’s will for my life?” Few questions have raised more speculation in Christian circles than this one. Thankfully, the Holy Spirit’s ministry involves giving direction. As we strive to devote our lives to God (Rom. 12:1), His Spirit enables and guides our spiritual progress.

Topics: Articles

We know we’re living in a time when the perception of Christian values isn’t always favorable. But the truth is that Christian values have shaped our modern world in many positive ways. How Christianity Transformed the World explores the stories of Christian men and women who have influenced education, medicine, philanthropy, human rights, and other foundations of society. 

Topics: Monthly Resources

“‘A gentle and quiet spirit’ is a supernatural quality, it’s a Spirit-ordained thing that God manufactures and produces.”
—Alistair Begg

Topics: Weekly Wallpaper

We’ve all been on the receiving end of bad news. It can be tragic, often producing feelings of despair, worry, or burden. This was true for Nehemiah, who lived as an exile in a foreign land far from Jerusalem. Indeed, the book of Nehemiah, which tells in first person the story of the titular figure’s effort to rebuild to the walls Jerusalem after the Jews’ sojourn in Babylon, opens with this startling bit of information:

Topics: Articles

Misconceptions about the person and work of God the Holy Spirit abound. His relationship to the Christian is often shrouded in mystery, leaving many confused about His purpose and perhaps even fearful of His work. Thankfully, though, God’s Word clarifies the Spirit’s work for those who would read it humbly and prayerfully.

Topics: Articles

“How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!”
—Psalm 139:17

Topics: Weekly Wallpaper

Most of us in the West can only imagine what it’s like to be caught up in the toils and tragedies of war. War has been a feature of the world ever since the fall, and both its consequences and its prevention remain key concerns of the high-minded.

But war not only confronts us globally, between people groups; it also confronts us individually, within our very natures. The Westminster Confession of Faith describes Christians as engaged in “a continual and irreconcilable war”¹ between the flesh and the spirit as sin seeks to maintain its hold on our lives.

Topics: Articles

O Love that will not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in thee.
I give thee back the life I owe,
that in thine ocean depths its flow
may richer, fuller be.

Topics: Hymns and Worship

When the disciples faced a terrifying storm, Jesus slept soundly in their boat. Then, when they awakened Jesus in fear, He responded with a display of His power and completely stilled the wind and waves with a word. Alistair Begg teaches from this Gospel story about the heart of Jesus toward His followers. Though following Him does not insulate us from life’s upheavals, no one is better suited to deal with our predicaments than Jesus, fully God and fully man.

Topics: From the Archives

Twenty-three years ago, encouraged by my colleague Jeff Mills, we began a conference with the goal of helping pastors to keep on in Gospel ministry. Sensing that we needed to give the conference a name, we settled on Basics. Our thinking was both simple and straightforward: rather than setting unrealistic or unattainable goals, we would focus on the fundamentals of being servants of the Word. Around that time, I had read a book which analyzed the success of various companies and was struck by the observation that despite the unique aspects of each company, what was true of them all was their ability to “do the basics well most of the time.” 

Topics: Letters From Alistair Begg

“Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory… ”
—Ephesians 3:20

Topics: Weekly Wallpaper

How often do you think about the oxygen that fills your lungs? Like the air we breathe, Christian values infuse our sense of morality in ways that are most often subconscious. The book The Air We Breathe: How We All Came to Believe in Freedom, Kindness, Progress, and Equality is a fascinating exploration of the values our contemporary society describes as natural or innate, while pointing out that these values are, in fact, not innate but given to us by our Creator.

Topics: Monthly Resources