In my estimation, Jonathan Edwards’s Justification by Faith Alone contains one of the most important and misunderstood1 evangelical discussions on the relationship between faith and works as they pertain to justification and salvation. Delivered in 1734 and first published in 1738, it may be found in 1:622–54 of his two-volume Works (Worcester rev. ed.),2 4:64–132 of […]
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Luther on the Necessity of Good Works
I’m involved in a discussion where the claim was made that the Protestant church has distorted the gospel by removing the necessity of good works for salvation—something the early Christians unanimously affirmed. Luther was singled out as one who cared nothing about good works—at least not in the context of salvation. I pointed out this section from […]
Calvin on God’s Permissive Will
After reading my post on Zac Smith’s cancer a while back, a friend of mine saw a link in the sidebar to a related post, “The Grace of Cancer,” and left a comment challenging my choice of words when I repeatedly said that God gave cancer to a man from our church to bring him […]
How to Use Greek and Hebrew in Blog Posts
If you use Greek and Hebrew in your blog posts, here’s a tip that will help you make it look good and give you the ability to make changes across your entire site in just a few seconds. There are two main things you need to do. Step 1: Add Styles to Your Style Sheet […]
The Story of Zac Smith
I encourage you to invest four-and-a-half minutes of your day watching this powerful and moving video about Zac Smith’s cancer, faith, and God. The Story of Zac Smith from NewSpring Media on Vimeo. Here are his concluding comments: “This I do know. If God chooses to heal me, then God is God, and God is […]
Creation, Evolution, and the Age of the Earth
I’ve seen several posts recently on the subject of creation, evolution, and the age of the earth. If you missed them and are interested in these kinds of discussions, you may want to give them a read. Do you believe God created the earth in six literal 24-hour days? by Randy Alcorn Why I’m Not a Creationist […]
Pettegrew on the Cessation of (All of) the Spiritual Gifts
I had a discussion with a friend over dinner a few days ago, and we were talking about books on the Holy Spirit that we liked. We talked about Sinclair Ferguson’s The Holy Spirit, and then Larry Pettegrew’s The New Covenant Ministry of the Holy Spirit came up. I commented on Pettegrew’s unique view that […]
Does the McCall–Yandell Argument Work? Feinberg Says No
I commented briefly in the second half of this post on why I think that the McCall–Yandell argument fails. (To get up to speed on what that argument is, see my two previous posts here and here.) A couple of days ago I stumbled across a quote in John Feinberg’s No One Like Him that […]