Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 04019 Paul writes to the Corinthian church and tells them, pointedly, that he cannot address them as spiritual people but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ (1 Corinthians 3:1). The church at Corinth was genuine enough that Paul wrote to it as a church and addresses them as brothers and sisters…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 11082 This question is framed as though it must be one or the other, and most of the energy in contemporary discourse goes into arguing for the disease model. Addiction, we are told, is a brain disorder rather than a moral failing, and framing it as sin is unhelpful at best and cruel at…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 6042 When a Christian fails morally, are they in the same position as someone who has deliberately turned their back on God and done evil with full intent? Every honest believer has experienced the frustration of Romans 7, doing what they did not want to do, failing in ways they genuinely hated, confessed, and…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 6041 Churches are generally clear about what sins are unacceptable: sexual immorality, drunkenness, theft, violence. These are named, condemned, and, when they surface, addressed. But there is another category of sin that passes almost without comment in most congregations, sins that are just as real and just as damaging but that carry no social…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 6044 Paul’s language of the “old man” and the “new man” appears at key points in his letters, and it is easy to read past it without understanding the weight of what he is actually saying. This is not motivational language about improving yourself or leaving bad habits behind. It is a description of…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 6049 This question troubles new Christians and experienced ones alike. If Christ has truly dealt with sin, if we are new creations, if the Spirit now lives within us, why does the pull toward sin remain so real and so persistent? Some teachers have suggested that genuine conversion should produce a point of complete…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 06060 John Owen’s seventeenth-century treatise on mortification of sin remains one of the most searching pieces of practical theology in the English language. But the concept did not originate with Owen. It is rooted in the apostle Paul’s instruction to “put to death therefore what is earthly in you” (Colossians 3:5), and it names…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 06061 Every honest believer knows what it is to return to the same sin again and again. Not the single stumble but the repeated pattern, the familiar failure that reasserts itself regardless of how many times it has been confessed and resolved against. Scripture is remarkably honest about this reality, and understanding what habitual…
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 06067 The practice of confession sits at the intersection of theology and daily Christian experience. Most believers know they should confess sin to God, but questions arise about whether that private prayer is all that is ever required — or whether Scripture sometimes calls for something more. The answer is more layered than a…