… After the Beatitudes, Jesus goes straight into an extended discourse on the true meaning of Old Testament law. The rest of Matthew 5 is a systematic, point-by-point critique of the Pharisees’ interpretation of Moses’ law. Jesus is correcting some of their representative errors. Some commentators have suggested that Jesus is altering or expanding the […]

To a typical Pharisee, what Jesus was saying to Nicodemus [in John 3] would likely have come across as highly offensive. Jesus was attacking the very core of Nicodemus’s belief system, plainly implying that Nicodemus was lost, spiritually lifeless, and ultimately no better off in his rigid Pharisaism than an utterly immoral Gentile without God. Indeed, […]

Martin Luther correctly identifies homosexuality with the sin of Sodom. Commenting on Genesis 19:4-5 he writes: I for my part do not enjoy dealing with this passage, because so far the ears of the Germans are innocent of and uncontaminated by this monstrous depravity; for even though disgrace, like other sins, has crept in through an […]

Following is Martin Luther, the great Church Reformer whom Jesus raised up, from his commentary on the Book of Galatians.  And while, just as I have, Luther also had his faults; however, it’s simply beyond question that God used this man mightily. Luther is commenting specifically on: Unto another gospel. Note the resourcefulness of the devil. […]

Christianity today is in conflict; in conflict against the secular world; in conflict with world religions—which are hostile to us—in conflict against the Kingdom of the Cults—and the Occult; in conflict against corrupt theology in our theological seminaries—and oftentimes in our pulpits; in conflict against all forms of evil surrounding us on all sides. And […]

 The problem is that the needed reformation within evangelicalism won’t occur at all if false ideas that undermine our core theological convictions cannot be openly attacked and excluded. When peaceful coexistence “with our deepest differences” becomes priority one and conflict per se is demonized as inherently sub-Christian, any and every false religious belief can and […]

 Our Lord’s sayings were all of a piece with His actions and His way of life in general. The fewer preconceptions we bring from the outside to the reading of the Gospels, the more clearly shall we see Him as He really was. It is all too easy to believe in a Jesus Who is […]

 If you believe what you like in the gospel, and reject what you don’t like, it is not the gospel you believe, but yourself. Augustine HT: Monergism.com

In the early days, when Christianity exercised a dominant influence over American thinking, men and women conceived the world to be a battleground. Our fathers believed in sin and the devil and hell as constituting one force, and they believed in God and righteousness and heaven as the other. By their very nature, these forces […]

In Matthew 19:3-6, the eyewitness biographer records this exchange between Jesus and the Pharisees: Matt. 19:3 And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?” 4 He [Jesus] answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them […]