Category Archives: Mercy

The Good King, A Story for Children Who May Be Afraid

As a pastor, I’m blessed to be not only an under-shepherd of God’s grown-up sheep, but of His little lambs as well. During a crisis like the one in which we now find ourselves, it is very easy to be so caught up in our own concerns and preparations that we overlook the wee ones. They may be small, but when they see their schools closing, or their mommy or daddy staying home from work, or when they don’t get to go visit granny in her care facility like they would normally do, their fear can be just as real and just as big as anything that might face an adult. These are confusing times for a child, and they need their parents or grandparents or other grown-ups to help them to understand that even when the world seems like it is falling apart, the Lord is still in control, and is still protecting them from all evil. Here is a simple presentation of the gospel that might help you as you talk to your little one about the coronavirus, its impact on our society, and how we respond to it as Christians.

A long time ago in a far-off country, there lived a good King. This King had two subjects, a man and a woman who were husband and wife. Continue reading

Moral Exemplar or Holy Substitute?

“Because our minds are so poor and frail, we rightly discuss the theories of the atonement. But we must always remember that the atonement is not a theory. It wasn’t a theory that died for us on the cross. It was a man who took our very physical nature himself in his own body.”[1] Ultimately, when discussing any theological issue, the reality that must overwhelm us is that we are contemplating truths that in their fullness are beyond us; our minds cannot grasp the depths of the Incarnation, the Trinity, etc., nor can our words completely encapsulate their reality. The God Whom we so often discuss is the living God, Whose holiness and glory and being and thoughts are beyond the reckoning of man. Continue reading

Don’t Shoot the Wounded: 1 Corinthians 1:1-9 and the Perseverance of the Saints

Paul, called by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus, and our brother Sosthenes,

To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours:

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus, that in every way you were enriched in him in all speech and all knowledge – even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you – so that you are not lacking in any gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. (1 Corinthians 1:1-9 ESV)

 

 

One of the greatest tragedies among orthodox evangelical Christians is our tendency to shoot the wounded. Often, whenever a brother or sister falls, instead of coming alongside them and helping them up, we have an inclination to stand over them, heaping upon them pitiless moral aphorisms and a conceptual theology that doesn’t recognize them as real human beings made in the image of the real, not-a-concept, living God. Continue reading