Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 3001. The identity of Jesus is, I think, the one question none of us gets to avoid indefinitely. Jesus put it to His own disciples at Caesarea Philippi, and He still puts it to every person who hears about Him: “But who do you say that I am?” (Matthew 16:15). People have offered plenty…
Reading Time: 9 minutesQuestion 1100. Social justice is a phrase that can mean almost anything depending on who is using it, and I think that ambiguity is exactly why the question deserves careful unpacking rather than a reflexive yes or no. Scripture has an enormous amount to say about justice, about the poor, the widow, the orphan and…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 1088. Scripture in evangelism is not a set of proof texts we reach for after we have already made our own case. It is the message itself, and the power that makes the message land. I have shared the gospel in enough settings, from the pulpit to a hospital bedside, to know how tempting…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 1020. The Bible’s main message gets lost surprisingly easily under the sheer size and apparent diversity of Scripture, sixty-six books, more than forty authors, several languages, a story stretching across roughly fifteen hundred years, and I want to state that central message plainly rather than leaving it buried under all that surrounding detail. Getting…
Reading Time: 9 minutesQuestion 4084. Few questions are as heavy as this one, and I never treat it lightly: is there a point of no return, a place where a person has so hardened themselves against God that they can no longer respond to the gospel at all? My settled answer, drawn carefully from Scripture, is that yes,…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 1011. Few pastoral questions trouble thoughtful Christians more than this one, and at its heart sits the matter of general revelation. Can a person be saved simply by looking at the created world and following their conscience, without ever hearing the name of Jesus? What about those born in remote places, or those who…
Reading Time: 9 minutesQuestion 8. Which doctrines are essential for salvation is a question that deserves great care, because the wrong answer in either direction is dangerous. Make the list too long and you start barring from heaven people the Lord has welcomed. Make it too short and you empty the gospel of its content until almost anything…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 07031 The hardening of the human heart is rarely a sudden event. Most people do not arrive at a settled state of spiritual insensibility in a single moment of dramatic rebellion. What Scripture describes, and what pastoral observation confirms, is a process — gradual, largely unnoticed by the person experiencing it, and with each…