At least thirty or more years ago I began to read Professor John M. Frame. At the time I did not know him personally, or that much about him. I knew he taught at Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia, and then at Westminster Seminary in California. I did not devour his work because I was too "denominationally chauvinistic" (a term John employs in his thinking about the downside of denominations) to get into a writer who was not in my own tribe. Over time I realized there were some great writers and teachers beyond my small circle of Christians and I began to read much more widely. (Two things will change your life for sure: (1) The people you meet; (2) The authors you read. Frame appealed to me because he was thoughtful and original, in a remarkably fresh way. He thought for himself and dared to raise great questions, albeit from within very conservative Reformed quarters.

Then I […]

The sovereign activity of God can be seen in many instances in Scripture. In fact, the truth is found throughout the entire biblical record. This is part of what led to my own embrace of this powerful truth almost forty years ago. Christians disagree about the particulars, at least in terms of how they define man's will and God's sovereignty, but they should not disagree about the basic fact of divine providence.

Providence is the doctrine of God's care for the creation, involving his preservation of it and his guiding it to his intended ends. The famous Heidelberg Catechism, personally my favorite catechism, says that providence is: "The almighty and everywhere present power of God, whereby, as it were by His hand, He still upholds heaven, earth, and all creatures, and so governs them that herbs and grass, rain and drought, fruitful and barren years, food and drink, health and sickness, riches and poverty, yea, all things, comes not by chance but […]

Yesterday, I referred to the fiftieth anniversary edition of John R. Stott's classic book, Basic Christianity. Today I return to this incredibly useful book to comment on Stott's opening chapter where he lays our what he calls: "The Right Approach."

Stott says that the first four words of the Bible are more than an introduction to the creation story or the book of Genesis. "They supply the key which opens our understanding to the Bible as a whole" (11). What these four words tell us, all interpretive issues regarding Genesis aside, is that the religion of the Bible is the religion in which God takes the initiative. Again, Stott has the ability to cut away so much that is less than central to the faith to get at what really, truly matters. Here is how he puts it:

You can never take God by surprise. You can never anticipate him. He always makes the first move. He is always […]