Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 4142 When Paul commands believers to be filled with the Spirit in Ephesians 5:18, the precise form of the Greek verb carries a great deal of the meaning. It is not a one-off event to be sought once and then left behind. To be filled with the Spirit is a present, continuous, commanded reality,…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 04067 The slogan let go and let God tries to capture a real truth, that we cannot sanctify ourselves by raw willpower, but it ends up distorting the way God actually works holiness into us. In Scripture, human responsibility and divine enablement are not rivals to be balanced against each other but partners that…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 04043 In Galatians 5 Paul sets the works of the flesh against the fruit of the Spirit, and the contrast tells us a great deal about the two ways a life can go. The works of the flesh are what fallen human nature produces when left to itself, while the fruit of the Spirit…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 04021 To ask how the Spirit works to sanctify us is to ask how God actually makes ordinary believers more like Jesus over the course of a life. The Holy Spirit does not sanctify us by a single dramatic stroke that leaves us instantly perfect, nor does He stand back and leave the work…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 04122 When Paul speaks of the law of the Spirit of life in Romans 8, he is describing the new governing principle that takes hold of a person who is in Jesus, the inward rule of the Holy Spirit that frees the believer from the old tyranny of sin and death. The law of…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 11098 Few questions cut closer to the heart of lived Christian experience than this one. If God loves His children, if Christ has secured their eternal future, and if the Holy Spirit indwells every believer, then why does the Christian life so often involve pain, loss, disappointment, and grief? The question is not new….
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 12024 Sexual purity is a concept that the surrounding culture regards as outdated, repressive, and unnecessary. The assumption in much of Western society is that sexual expression is a private matter to be governed by consent and personal preference, with no reference to any standard beyond the individual. Scripture takes a fundamentally different view….
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 12023 Pornography is one of the most pervasive and destructive forces operating in contemporary culture, and the church is not immune. The scale of the problem is staggering: internet pornography has made what was once difficult to access freely available on every smartphone, and its consumption cuts across every demographic, including professing Christians. This…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 12058 Cohabitation has become so normalised in Western culture that many people, including many professing Christians, no longer see it as a moral issue at all. The reasoning typically runs along practical lines: it makes financial sense, it lets you test compatibility before committing, and it is what everyone does. The church needs to…
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…