Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 07033 Election is one of the most debated doctrines in Christian theology, and the stakes are genuinely high — because the way election is understood directly shapes how a person thinks about God’s character, human freedom, the gospel offer, and the basis of assurance. The word itself simply means choosing or selecting, and no…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 07096 Calvinism is one of the most influential theological systems in the history of Protestant Christianity. Named after the sixteenth-century Reformer John Calvin, though its roots extend further back into Augustine’s theology, it offers a comprehensive account of God’s dealings with humanity that centres on divine determination and unconditional election. Understanding what Calvinism teaches,…
Reading Time: 5 minutesQuestion 13008 The history of the Christian church stretches across two thousand years, from the apostolic community in Jerusalem to the global faith of the present day. Understanding church history is not an optional extra for the serious believer. It provides context for the doctrines we hold, warns against errors that have been tried and…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 13002 Martin Luther is one of the most consequential figures in the history of Christianity. His challenge to the Roman Catholic Church in the early sixteenth century ignited the Protestant Reformation, and his theological convictions about justification, Scripture, and the nature of the gospel continue to shape Protestant identity. Understanding who he was, what…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 13001 The Reformation is one of the most significant events in the history of the Christian church. It reshaped the theological, political, and cultural landscape of Europe, and its effects continue to define the boundaries of Protestant Christianity to this day. Understanding what happened, why it happened, and what was at stake is essential…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 11090 Few pastoral questions produce more confusion, guilt, and genuine suffering than this one. The Christian who has wrestled with an addictive or compulsive pattern of sin — whether that involves alcohol, pornography, drugs, food, gambling, or any other form — frequently encounters competing frameworks. Some Christian traditions treat it as purely spiritual: a…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 06065 The relationship between temptation and sin is one of the most practically important questions in Christian theology, precisely because every believer is tempted and every believer needs to understand what temptation is, what it is not, and how it relates to sin. The discussion is considerably deepened — and genuinely complicated — by…
Reading Time: 5 minutesQuestion 06066 This question touches one of the deepest fault lines in all of theology — the relationship between God’s purposes and the existence of evil in His creation. Scripture affirms with remarkable plainness that God can and does bring good out of evil. It also affirms with equal plainness that God is not the…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 06070 The Old Testament does not use a single word for sin. It uses a rich vocabulary of overlapping terms that together paint a more complete picture of what sin actually is than any single word could capture. Three of those terms recur throughout the Hebrew Scriptures — and significantly, they appear together in…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 7009 Near the end of his first epistle, the apostle John writes something that has puzzled believers for centuries: “If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask, and God will give him life—to those who commit sins that do not lead to death. There is sin that…