Dear Matt: My support of the direction of NIU expressed in your open letter may not matter to you and in the minds of some would not be helpful to you since I am no longer considered a fundamentalist or separatist by many, neither do I care to be known as such using their parameters. Read more

The Gospel and the City in Genesis is part of a series of short articles written by my brother John on his blog, the gospel first. He has now reached chapter 21 in the series which you can find here. I think it is an outstanding series but do not claim to be objective. See Read more

Living in the city will cost you in many ways. One item I had not figured into my budget was parking tickets and red light fines from cameras placed at intersections. I lived ten years in the suburbs and can’t remember paying a parking ticket. I’m making up for it now. I am guilty of Read more

One of the questions most asked by prospective church planters is “How do you finance a church plant?” Before I offer any thoughts in the days to come, here’s a caveat. Normally it takes a lot of things to plant a church including money and lots of it. However, don’t expect that everyone who enthusiastically Read more

I’m at ETS in Atlanta this week and enjoying the time of theological reflection and seeing old friends. Over 2500 registered. It may be the largest ever for ETS. The theme this year is Justification by Faith. Wednesday night Tom Schreiner spoke on the subject in critiquing N. T. Wright’s views. Wright speaks on Friday Read more

Mark Dever raised a ruckus last year over his statement that "you are in sin if you lead your congregation to have a statement of faith that requires a particular millennial view.” I would not put it in those terms although I agree on the non-necessity of having a particular millennial view in a church doctrinal statement. I’m Read more

If you are wondering what role early churches had in influencing culture and social structures, you might find helpful this quote from Tim Keller's presentation at Lausanne. And maybe we should ask ourselves: How should we offer "charity and hope" to the homeless and impoverished as the early churches did in urban centers? Or should we?  Or only Read more

Here's a short 18 minute video on urban mission. Keller gives 10 characteristics of contextual churches. You can also download his urban mission paper. Here's a quote from that paper. "Biblically, an experience of saving grace through evangelism leads to radical sharing of wealth and helping the needy. And when the world sees this sharing, Read more

I've been working my way through the audio now available from the recent DBTS conference on “Church, Kingdom, Mission: Understanding and Assessing the Missional Church Movement.” I was surprised to hear my name pop up on Dave Doran’s general session 3 on “The Gospel and Mission” (56:12) in which he references an article I wrote Read more

It is often pointed out that the Apostle Paul did not explicitly attack slavery in his day but regulated relationships between Christian masters and slaves. Closer to our times, Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758), rightly acclaimed as one of the greatest theologians ever, was a slave owner. It appears that “though he defended the institution of slavery, Read more