Look at the Book

When we put our hands to the plow of our Christian lives, we cannot leave prayer behind. God gives the strength we need; he must work within us.

Our growth in Christ can seem so slow and the road so long, but we can take comfort knowing that God himself is maturing us.

The welcoming of the nations into the unspeakable hope of the glory of God is the mystery revealed to the elect in the gospel of Christ.

What is lacking in Christ’s afflictions? The personal, bodily, costly presentation of his love to the elect through missionaries.

Paul understood his sufferings for the gospel as an essential means to bring about the salvation of the elect.

The New Testament provides at least six reasons for why Christians embrace the trials they undergo with joy.

God is no tribal deity. He will see to it that his gospel reaches every tribe, people, language, and nation under heaven.

God uses the warning passages of Scripture to stimulate us to fight for faith. And he uses that fight to keep us safe until the end.

God achieves reconciliation at the cross and applies it to us through faith, and he does it all to bring the elect to himself.

Alienated. Enemies. Evil. We won’t revel as we ought in the reconciling work of Christ unless we know who we were without him.

When God finishes his reconciling work, there will be nothing left unreconciled to him.

The central truths of the gospel of reconciliation are bound up in the mystery of the Trinity.

The one who humbly stoops to save his people is the infinitely supreme Creator and Upholder of all things.

God created all things through the Son so that all might know the beauty and glory and supremacy of the Son.

When Scripture calls Jesus “the firstborn of creation,” he doesn’t mean firstborn as part of creation.

Through faith, Christians are delivered from bondage to Satan and transferred to the kingdom of the Son.

At the cross, Satan’s one weapon of damnation is taken away. Jesus’s sacrifice cancels our record of debt.

To be a Christian means God delivered you from the rule of Satan to live under the rule of God’s beloved Son.

The Father has mercifully and freely adopted us into his family and placed us in the bright kingdom of his Son.

What produces the kind of strength we need to patiently and joyfully endure? The glory of God.

The good works God brings about through our lives are a means he uses to increase our knowledge of him.

How does one walk in a manner worthy of the Lord? Value him in your work, in your play, in your worship.

How can I know God’s will for my life? How can I live a life pleasing to him in everything I do?

Pray for fellow believers that they might grow in Christian maturity, that is, that they would know God’s will and walk in a manner pleasing to him.

Understanding all the Bible says about God’s will requires one to think in two categories: the sovereign will of God and the moral will of God.

Through prayer, we participate in God’s ongoing work of strengthening the saints and bringing them to full maturity.

Prayer and careful thinking about God aren’t separate activities. Prayer should precede theology; theology should inform prayer.

Faith in the promises of God overflows in love toward others by the gracious working of the Spirit in the heart.

The gospel is not static. It increasingly advances throughout the world and grows in the heart of believers.

A gospel presentation that stops at the forgiveness of sins has missed the ultimate aim of the gospel, namely full and forever joy in God himself.

The gospel is not just a truth to know, but a truth to be embraced and loved and taught and proclaimed.

Faith that truly embraces the hope laid up in heaven reveals itself through good works that are done in love.

Moses could renounce the pleasures of Egypt because of his coming reward. In the same way, Christians reject the world and put all our hope in Christ.

Our hope laid up in heaven includes forgiveness of sins, a dwelling in the kingdom of Christ, and an inheritance in light.

Jesus’s sonship is not like ours. All the benefits we enjoy as sons come to us through the only-begotten, eternal Son of the Father.

The people who have God as their Father are the recipients of his inheritance, namely, boundless grace and perfect peace.

Prison, for the apostle, was not a time for pity parties, but for productive labor on behalf of local churches.

Every believer is someone who has already been made holy through his union with Christ by faith.

The apostle mentions his fellow ministers, in part, to show how important relational dynamics are in the exercise of Christian authority.

What we read in the apostles is not mere human wisdom, but wisdom taught by the Spirit.

How might you summarize Paul’s second letter to the Thessalonians? In this lab, Pastor John makes an attempt.

Peace is precious. Peace is to be prized. But peace is not to be pursued at any cost.

The aim of holy ostracism is to cause shame in a fellow believer so that they might turn and walk in the light.

There are at least five significant implications from Paul’s command to the Thessalonian church to “eat your own bread.”

God created mankind for good works. When he makes us new in Christ, his purpose remains the same.

When someone sins against us, Christians are not always called to turn the other cheek.

Pastors ought to be paid for their labors, but they should never give the impression that they labor for money.

Christians must have a category for shaming other Christians so that they might repent and be reconciled.

Hearts that remain firm through trials don’t depend on their own strength, but hang on the steadfastness of Christ.

Disobedient churches deal lightly, if at all, with flagrant disobedience. Obedient churches consistently practice church discipline.