Articles

In his book The Madness of Crowds, Douglas Murray observes, “People in wealthy Western democracies” now have “absolutely no explanation for what we are doing here, and no story to give life purpose”¹—no overarching narrative that guides our sense of where we fit on our earthly journey and in the unfolding panorama of our world. As the children’s nursery rhyme would have it, “All the king’s horses and all the king’s men” cannot “put Humpty together again.” We have, as a culture, fallen off the wall, and we lie in pieces on the ground.

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Countless pages of the Bible recount the outpouring of God’s love for the least deserving. The contours of Scripture’s story line help us to know and feel that God Himself is love (1 John 4:8, 16). He is more than love, of course, but never less.

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One of the greatest Reformation-era rediscoveries is the astounding truth that sinful men and women can be justified—made right with God—on the basis of faith alone. No merit of our own makes us acceptable to God. It is ever and only faith in the Lord Jesus Christ that restores the broken relationship we have with our Creator.

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Psalm 51:1–2“Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin!”

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We live at a time when truth has been devalued and tolerance has been enthroned. Everyone has their own opinions about how to reach “divine reality”—whether that be nirvana, paradise, or the denial of the divine altogether, which just leads us to the deification of the material or the self. Too often, when faced with such cultural pressures, all that our churches have to offer in response is a kind of how-to or self-help therapeutic program that lacks robust, distinctly Christian theology.

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God’s Word is a focal point during most Christian worship services. But why do so many churches give such priority to the public reading and preaching of the Bible? And how should the church respond?

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When Paul wrote to the Corinthian church, he reminded them, “I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2). This statement establishes the centrality of the cross in preaching, over against the showiness and vanity that’s so often displayed in “lofty speech or wisdom” (v. 1).

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William Still was a minister in Aberdeen, Scotland, who was known for his commitment to expository preaching. It’s been said that on one occasion, a visitor to Still’s church greeted him at the conclusion of the service and said to him, “But Mr. Still, you don’t preach.” Still asked what he meant, and the man answered, “Well, you just take a passage from the Bible and explain what it means.” Still replied, “Brother, that is preaching.”

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He thought it was a one-night stand, a little midnight tryst. Who would find out? She was exceptionally beautiful. She was particularly vulnerable. And in the end—after he used her for a few moments of pleasure—she was, unfortunately, pregnant.

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The second coming of Jesus Christ is absolutely foundational to the Gospel, which concerns not only the birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension of God the Son but also His return. This event and the doctrines that surround it are integral to “the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3).

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