Why we require church membership at the communion table

‘Several times per year, someone asks me to explain why we require church membership. To be clear, we don’t limit communion to members of our church. We simply ask that everyone who comes be a baptized member of a church of similar faith and practice. We are not trying to be unnecessarily exclusive with this practice. We are, however, attempting to be faithful to what God has revealed about the nature of the Lord’s Supper and who he says it’s for.’

Why claim total depravity when people do good all the time?

This is a helpful and straightforward answer to a common misunderstanding about the doctrine of total depravity.

Your holy deeds are not filthy rags

Speaking of misunderstandings, John Piper has this to say about Isaiah’s comments about righteous deeds and filthy rags: ‘Think what a horrible thing it would be to say that the fruit of the Holy Spirit in the Christian life is filthy rags. I can hardly stand to even think about it. They are not filthy rags. They are God’s precious gift and work in us.’ He helps us understand what Isaiah is saying and how that relates to the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer.

Is watching porn a sin?

This one tells us what you imagine it would.

4 categories of doctrinal weight in Christian theology

‘One way to describe a doctrine’s weight is by understanding the consequences of being wrong about it. Believing the wrong thing about some doctrines could send us to hell, while being wrong about others has little impact on our spiritual life. The categories have different names depending on who you ask, but they are essentially the same regardless of what we call them.’

What would Paul say about the Olympic opening ceremony?

There has been a lot of comments on that olympic opening ceremony, and they are continuing to roll in. This one happens to be one of the more interesting perspectives I have read about it.

From the archive: By all means don’t advocate Socialism, but stop trying to argue it is unbiblical

‘By all means, don’t advocate Socialism. Feel free to say it doesn’t work or make your own arguments as to why whatever you advocate is better. But please, can we stop insisting that the Bible says it is evil and ungodly. It just doesn’t.’