Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 12064 Few phrases have generated as much heat in contemporary Christian conversation as “love the sinner, hate the sin.” It is often attributed to Augustine, though the precise formulation is closer to a paraphrase than a direct quotation. It has become a shorthand for the Christian attempt to navigate between two extremes: unconditional approval…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 11097 The question of alternative medicine is more complex than it might initially appear, because the category itself covers an enormous range of practices — from herbal remedies with genuine pharmacological properties to therapies rooted in Eastern religious philosophies and New Age spirituality. The Christian’s task is to exercise discernment, and that requires distinguishing…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 12009 The concept of a “white lie” is so deeply embedded in everyday life that most people never stop to examine it. The assumption is simple: some lies are harmless, told with good intentions, and are therefore morally acceptable or even virtuous. “You look great in that dress.” “The dinner was wonderful.” “I’m fine,…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 12006 War is one of the most painful realities of human existence, and the question of whether a Christian can support, participate in, or justify it has been debated throughout the history of the church. The spectrum of Christian opinion ranges from absolute pacifism to the just war tradition to, in some cases, the…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 12005 Capital punishment is one of those issues where Christians hold genuinely different positions, and it is worth acknowledging that at the outset. It is not a question on which salvation depends, but it is a question where Scripture speaks, and the Christian’s task is to listen carefully to what it says rather than…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 12001 Every day, often without thinking about it, we make decisions that carry moral weight. Some are small and others are life-altering, but all of them reveal something about what we believe, what we value, and whom we ultimately serve. The question of how Christians make moral decisions is not academic. It is one…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 12000 Ethics is one of those words that gets used constantly but rarely defined carefully. In secular culture it tends to mean something like “the general sense of right and wrong that decent people share,” which is vague enough to mean almost anything. For the Christian, the question is far more precise and far…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 11021 Missions is not a department of the church’s work. It is the heartbeat of what the church exists to do. From the call of Abraham in Genesis 12 to the vision of every tribe and tongue gathered before the throne in Revelation 7, the Bible tells the story of a God who pursues…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 11019 The word “disciple” appears far more often in the New Testament than the word “Christian.” That alone should tell us something about what the early church understood the normal Christian life to look like. Discipleship is not an advanced course for the especially committed. It is the basic shape of what it means…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 11018 Every Christian has been entrusted with the most important message in the history of the world. The gospel is not the exclusive property of pastors or evangelists. It belongs to every believer, and the responsibility to share it is woven into the fabric of what it means to follow Jesus. But many Christians…