That God actually rules—over salvation, over history, over the hard providences that land in a life—and what changes once you believe it.
Most of this circles one question: who decides? The papers work it out historically and exegetically—Pelagius to Dort, and election across both Testaments. The sermons and messages ask what the doctrine is for, usually in front of people going through something hard. The blog posts take up the contested texts and the long Calvinist–Arminian argument one piece at a time, and two of them ask what providence looks like when it lands—on a coastline and on a friend.
Papers & Sermons 6
-
An Overview and Comparative Analysis of the Soteriology of Calvinism, Arminianism, and Amyraldianism
Paper · 2003
The three systems laid side by side—their history from Pelagius to the Synod of Dort, then a point-by-point comparison on depravity, election, atonement, and grace.
-
An Old Testament Theology of Election
Paper · 2004
Election before Paul: what the Hebrew Scriptures actually say about God’s choosing—the half of the doctrine the debate tends to skip.
-
A Biblical Theology of Election in the Old and New Testaments
Sermon · 2004
The whole canon on election—the vocabulary, the images used for the elect, and the shape of the doctrine from Genesis to Revelation.
-
The Providence of God in the Life of Onesimus
Sermon · 2001
A biographical sermon: how providence moved a runaway slave from Colossae to Rome, to Paul, and home again a brother.
-
The Stabilizing Power of the Doctrine of Election (2 Thessalonians 2:13–17)
Sermon · 2001
Paul doesn’t use election to settle an argument—he uses it to steady a rattled church. Why the doctrine stabilizes.
-
Promise of Security (Romans 8:28)
Sermon
The written form of The Christian’s Comfort—the promise taken apart clause by clause, with Job as the test case.
Messages 6
-
The Biblical Doctrine of Election
Message · 2005
A full teaching session on election—the terms, the ways Scripture describes the elect, and why the doctrine turns up in nearly every book of the Bible.
-
The Practical Doctrine of Election
Message · 2003
The midweek version, aimed at the practical question: what is a doctrine this contested actually good for?
-
The Stabilizing Power of the Sovereign Grace of God (John 6:44)
Message · 2020
What “draws” means in John 6:44—traced through every other use of the word in the New Testament—and why that settles more than it seems.
-
The Stabilizing Power of Knowing the God of the Gospel (Romans 8:14–39)
Message · 2023
Romans 8 preached at a memorial service. What holds when the worst has already happened.
-
The Christian’s Comfort (Romans 8:28)
Message · 1999
An early sermon on Romans 8:28 and the believer’s security: you must believe in a sovereign God.
-
The God We Can Trust (Job 1–2)
Message · 2000
Job’s God is sovereign, good, and wise—and you can only trust him as far as you actually know him.
Sovereignty in the Text 4
The contested passages, worked one at a time.
-
Why Did God Harden Pharaoh’s Heart? A Case for Divine Ultimacy
Post · January 2021
The hardening of Pharaoh read closely, and a case that God’s will stands behind human willing rather than beside it.
-
Post · January 2007
Does Jude 4’s “ordained to this condemnation” teach reprobation? A close look at what προγεγραμμένοι can carry.
-
Post · April 2007
“The grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people”—a favorite proof text, read in its own context.
-
Post · May 2007
And what Calvin himself said about that verse, against the claim that Reformed orthodoxy contradicts it.
Providence in Real Life 2
-
Post · February 2013
Reading a professor’s account of his own diagnosis, and thinking about what believing in providence will cost when it is my turn.
-
Was the Oil Spill an Act of God?
Post · June 2010
Rick Warren said calling the spill an act of God takes his name in vain. Amos 3:6 says the opposite—and refusing to say it robs God of glory.
The Calvinist–Arminian Argument 5
-
Calvin on God’s Permissive Will
Post · June 2010
Whether God “permits” evil or ordains it—Calvin on a distinction many people reach for as a comfort.
-
Bahnsen on the Extent of the Atonement
Post · August 2007
A twenty-three-year-old Greg Bahnsen defending definite atonement, with something of Owen’s fervency.
-
“If you die in unbelief, Christ did not die for you.”
Post · March 2012
Chasing a much-quoted line about limited atonement back to its source—and not finding one.
-
Piper on Calvinism, Arminianism, and Logic
Post · February 2013
Piper on the irony that Calvinists get called the logic-driven ones.
-
Post · April 2009
The oldest objection to election: why evangelize? God ordains the end and the means.
Book Reviews 3
-
The Potter’s Freedom by James White
Review · 2008
James White’s rebuttal of Norman Geisler—a non-technical but pointed defense of Reformed soteriology.
-
The Five Points of Calvinism by Edwin H. Palmer
Review · 2008
Palmer’s little summary of the five points, and where it helps a layman and where it doesn’t.
-
The Pleasures of God by John Piper
Review · 2008
Piper on God’s delight in being God—including his pleasure in election.
Looking for the best of what others have written on this? See the Providence and the Sovereignty of God reading list →