Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 6007 Once we become Christians, is it possible to reach a point where we no longer sin? Some have taught a doctrine of “entire sanctification” or “Christian perfection,” claiming that believers can achieve sinless perfection in this life. Others seem to think that since we are saved by grace, it does not particularly matter…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 6010 In Psalm 19, David prays, “Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me!” (Psalm 19:13). This suggests there is a category of sin that is particularly dangerous, something beyond the ordinary sins we all commit. What are presumptuous sins, and why should they concern us? Understanding…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 06073 Can we be genuinely guilty before God for something we did not know was wrong? The question touches on the relationship between moral knowledge, intention, and accountability, and it has direct practical bearing on conscience, on the thoroughness of Christian self-examination, and on how wide the scope of God’s grace actually is. The…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 11068 Few questions in Christian living carry more confusion than the one about anger. Some believers conclude that any experience of anger is a failure of sanctification, and they spend their lives suppressing it or feeling guilty about it. Others treat every surge of anger as righteous indignation that needs no scrutiny. Scripture is…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 5004 The question of masculinity has become genuinely contested in contemporary Western culture. From one direction comes the insistence that traditional masculine virtues are inherently problematic, expressions of privilege and domination that require deconstruction. From another, a reactive form of masculinity has emerged that confuses aggression, emotional closure, and domination with genuine strength. Neither…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 5005 To speak of biblical femininity in the current cultural moment is to invite immediate suspicion that what follows will be a list of restrictions, a theological justification of reduced expectations, or a religious endorsement of what critics would call patriarchy. None of that would be accurate. The biblical portrait of womanhood is one…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 05007 Few questions in ethics carry more weight than this one. When does a human life begin? It is the question underlying every discussion of abortion, every debate about embryo research, and every conversation about what we owe to the most vulnerable. Scripture addresses it, and its answer is consistent: the life in the…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 05039 Why did God create us? It is the question that underlies every other question about human existence. Before asking what we ought to do with our lives, or what awaits us after death, we need to know why we are here at all. Scripture does not answer with a single proof-text, but its…
Reading Time: 5 minutesQuestion 05044 Few pastoral situations press harder on theological convictions than watching someone disappear behind advancing dementia. The face is familiar; the body is present; and yet something that once defined the person — their memory, their personality, their capacity for recognition or conversation — is gone. What does Scripture say is actually happening to…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 5024 Something notable happens when the biblical story of humanity begins. Before the breath, before the garden, before the command, there is the ground. “The LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground” (Genesis 2:7). The word translated “dust” is the Hebrew ʿaphar, referring to dry earth, loose soil, the fine powdery…