The early church father Tertullian reminds us that when Jesus took the government upon his shoulders, it was the cross.
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/jesus-reigned-from-the-cross/
“What you hold in your hands is a guided tour—a topically arranged encyclopedia to a podcast archive. I don’t intend for that to make immediate sense, because I think this book inaugurates ...
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/ask-pastor-john-book/
“There’s no formula, no secret, no technique, no program, no schedule, and no truth that guarantees the speed, distance, or time frame. On the day you die, you’ll still be somewhere in the ...
A simple chronology to show how Matthew 1–2 and Luke 1–2 fit together and what each of the gospel authors emphasize.
Ten ways in which Christ’s identity is progressively revealed in the pages of Scripture.
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/who-is-jesus-christ/
In his mid 40s and blind, a poet ponders how he will serve his Maker with the gift he was given.
Crossway had entered into phase 2 of its million-Bible giveaway to under-resourced people in the majority world.
The Church is governed by the keys of the heavenly kingdom, with spiritual, not physical sanctions.
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/the-church-as-a-theo-political-order/
George Verwer was a man who never got over the goodness of the good news. His passion was to see all the peoples of the world finally and eternally glad in Christ.
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/george-verwer-1938-2023/
How an analytic philosopher can help legislators define the terms more precisely.
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/define-male-female/
Why did Jesus die? Because he was making outrageous claims about his identity. Why would anyone take these claims seriously? Because this followers claim that he rose from the dead? If he did, th...
A 19th-century Presbyterian divine reminds us that pastors are nothing without the Bible.
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/what-is-the-bible-to-a-pastor/
Should Christians believe in “evolution”? It depends on what you mean.
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/evolution/
Theology is the art of making biblically sanctioned distinctions.
Redefining marriage obscures the shape and weakens the special norms of an institution on which social order depends.
An exciting opportunity from Crossway: The Treasure Could you imagine what life would be like without your Bible? How would your faith be different? What impact would the lack of a Bible have on ...
Zambian pastor and author Conrad Mbewe is one of the new voices coming to ESV.org and the ESV Bible app in 2023.
Biblical Reasoning: Christological and Trinitarian Rules for Exegesis (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2022), by R. B. Jamieson and Tyler R. Wittman, is garnering significant praise. Fred Sanders c...
“We want to complexify our lives. We don’t have to, we want to. We wanted to be harried and hassled and busy.”
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/you-want-to-be-addicted-to-distraction/
“Our hope is to articulate our beliefs in a way that does not condemn but rather invites people to joy in Jesus Christ.”
“The One who designed ethnic diversity has unparalleled authority and has the final word on the whole issue.”
“No one who supports abortion wants to talk about what really happens in every abortion procedure.”
Which are you more likely to hear an evangelical talk about on social media these days—the culture wars or the glorious privilege of communion and fellowship with the triune God?
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/how-are-we-doing-on-this-evangelicals/
The old theologian Charles Hodge on Christianity as both a doctrine and a life; both a proposition and a person.
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/what-is-christianity-what-is-a-christian/
Interacting with the Apostle Paul through Romans 1.
Matt Chandler: “To punt on Jesus, because some Christian you know isn’t up to your standards, is a dangerous place to stand before a living God.”
An on-the-ground update from Pastor Sergey Nakul of Grace Reformed Church in Kyiv.
The contrast is not doctrinal but personal, between two different sets of remarkable talents and temperaments.
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/augustine-vs-aquinas/
“Jesus didn’t receive an expensive education, never married, never had children, never owned a home of his own, and didn’t possess much more than the clothes on his back.”
Erick Erickson: “Maybe pray for each other more than you subtweet and write about each other.”
Tim Keller and Friedrich Nietzsche offer similar warnings.
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/jesus-was-not-pharisaical-to-the-pharisees/
Seven positions represented or presupposed in the New Testament about Christians and the law covenant with Moses.
“A conversation about race consciousness morphed into a conversation that increasingly felt like race essentialism.”
“This is creating a crisis. No, I haven’t faced anything like this in the past.”
Gibson has mined the best of the Christian tradition to take a gospel-centered worship service structure and apply the same sort of pattern to our personal time with the Lord.
“Part of me wishes I could despise the man who did this to my father. But I can’t get any part of my heart to hate him.”
Mark Driscoll once said, “No one would ever yell at you for being a Christian who produces results.”
Abortion was rampant, especially in ancient Rome, and the early Christians, like the Jews, consistently opposed it.
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/did-the-early-church-oppose-abortion/
“Augustine affirmed sola Scriptura. In fact, he could not have been clearer in affirming it.”
In 2009, Matt Chandler gave a powerful illustration about purity and the gospel of grace and forgiveness.
In cinemas nationwide for one-night only, this film features award-winning actor Max McLean as the older Lewis and breakout star Nicholas Ralph as young Lewis, beautifully filmed in Oxford.
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/a-new-movie-on-the-conversion-of-c-s-lewis/
Death doesn’t pass over them on the ground of the intensity, or the clarity, of the faith exercised. But on the ground of the blood of the lamb.
Theologian David Wells on what worldliness is and does.
What are you doing here? “The man on the middle cross said I could come here.”
“Take and eat.” “What were once words leading to condemnation are now, on the lips of Jesus, words of salvation.”
A treasure trove of teaching and discussion with one of the most thoughtful and powerful preachers of our day.
J. I. Packer: “Impressions need to be suspected before they are sanctioned and tested before they are trusted.”
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/j-i-packer-on-impressions/
Dr. Anthony Levatino explains how he performed late-term abortions. And why he stopped.
“This is an age in which the view I am stating is often dismissed without argument, and indeed without understanding.”
A video explaining how a new age of vaccine technology sends our own bodies the instructions on how to protect ourselves.
Animated videos walk through the philosophical foundations for understanding that abortion is unjust and therefore objectively immoral.
Sinful narcissistic husbands are in bondage to at least five damaging sins.
A 3-minute, never-before-seen look at life in the womb.
Point by point, Jesus is acting out symbolically what Paul describes theologically.
Dorothy Sayers: “We have known it far too well for many years. The only thing perhaps that we have not known about it is that it is a mortal sin.”
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/the-deadly-sin-of-sloth/
“You can’t get second things by putting them first. You get second things only by putting first things first.”
A renowned New Testament scholar says that it is totally inappropriate for Christians, young or old, to address God as “Daddy.”
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/why-abba-does-not-mean-daddy/
NT professor Tom Schreiner summarizes the entire OT storyline.
“As soon as you see the church herself as part of the problem, you have lost the gospel and deprived yourself and your audience of hope.”
The sands of time are sinking / The dawn of Heaven breaks / The summer morn I’ve sighed for / The fair, sweet morn awakes
“According to actuarial tables I am supposed to die when Steve Green’s song, ‘God and God Alone,’ turns 50.”
“What is someone who professes faith in Christ to do when the waves of life wash over him? Will his faith prove to be genuine? Or will he spurn Christ and rush toward the false harbors of this ...
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/a-meditation-from-dane-ortlund-on-psalm-42/
“The tune captures the sense of the truth that death has lost its sting, and the feel of Jesus scattering our fear and gloom.”
“Those two songs represent both cross and kingdom, both grace and glory, both redemption and resurrection—and that’s what I would like to be the last word in this life and the first word in...
J. I. Packer was never able to see this book in print, but it was one he devoted his final years to producing.
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/j-i-packers-final-book/
What we want played at our funeral reveals a lot about who we are and what we care about. Joni Eareckson Tada explains the song she would pick and what happened when she first heard it.
An interview with the CEO behind a next-generation internet filter that uses artificial intelligence to block porn on all devices.
“If I begin to enjoy it as a kind of intellectual exercise, then I am cruel and can expect no real spiritual results.”
Charles Taylor helps us differentiate between secular as temporal, secular as areligious, and secular as an age of contested belief.
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/what-is-secular/
A beautiful song above from Keith and Kristyn Getty’s new album, Evensong—plus a personal application from John Piper.
Christopher Yuan—an agnostic gay man who is now a Bible professor—talks through what the scientific and philosophical evidence reveals.
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/is-being-gay-genetic/
Master teacher Greg Koukl helps us think through a game-plan for discussing our convictions with wisdom, knowledge, and grace.
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/free-course/
The Westminster Larger Catechism reminds us that the ninth commandment contains both duties that are required and sinful patterns that are forbidden.
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/the-ninth-commandment/
Titles include Marriage by Paul David Tripp, Glimmers of Grace by Kathryn Butler, and the ESV Illuminated Scripture Journal, Gospels Set.
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/new-books-and-bibles-from-crossway-in-april/
“Truth does not reign by the ballot box, or by the counting of heads:
“The Holy Spirit was kind to convict me about whose words take first priority in my day.”
Before he declared, “Here I stand!” he quietly said, “I beg you, give me time to think it over.”
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/luther-and-the-diet-of-worms-500/
But praise be to God. It’s only Friday. Sunday’s coming.
If Jesus of Nazareth is still dead, with bones buried somewhere in Jerusalem, then Christians are pitiful, hopeless, fools. So what does the historical evidence look like?
Ten years ago, you probably didn’t know anyone who identified as transgender. Today, you almost certainly know someone who identifies as transgender.
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/why-girls-become-boys/
The whole biblical drama can be told as a story about God’s temple—the place where heaven and earth meet.
In this new edition of the song “My Worth Is Not in What I Own” (featuring We Are Messengers), John Piper points us again to the foot of the cross, where we find our worth in the Savior who g...
I agree with virtually every word in David French’s latest piece—except for the argument itself.
“How do I avoid the appearance of hyperbole when I think the proposed work is not only the most important thing he has written but also has the potential to be a classic that serves and instruc...
Many Christians—myself included—have assumed that being pro-life means extending life as long as possible and using all medical means available.
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/how-my-mind-changed-about-end-of-life-care/
Look at the structure of your church’s most recent gathering. What is the “story” that it tells through the arrangement of the various elements? Is it a story worth instilling in your congr...
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/a-tale-of-two-liturgies/
Because we all need some gospel music today.
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/kirk-franklins-tiny-desk-concert-on-npr/
“You’re only saying that because you’re a _____________ (man/woman/Democrat/Republican/Christian/atheist/etc.).”
John Piper sits down to talk about his new magnum opus, a 700-page treatment on the Providence of God.
“Discovering the Holiness of God: The Formation of R. C. Sproul,” narrated by Steve Nichols (author of the biography, “R. C. Sproul: A Life”), looks at the 1970s as Sproul founded the Li...
Books and Bibles to instruct, encourage, strengthen, and edify.
“It’s not about how you say it, or how rigorously you argue it, or how charitably you present it. It’s about whether you affirm or dissent from the new orthodoxy of gender ideology.”
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/the-book-amazon-does-not-want-you-to-read/
“No sooner do I conceive of the one than I am illumined by the splendor of the three; no sooner do I distinguish them than I am carried back to the one.”
Scholars Duane Garrett, Christopher Wright, and Umberto Cassuto explain why the theory is anachronistic, implausible, heavily criticized, and has little payoff.
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/the-yawn-of-jedp/
The story of Jesus and the gospel has been told millions of times. So how do you do it in a fresh way, while keeping the core message clear? Here’s a new video blending many kinds of animation.
Harold Best, John Piper, Bob Kauflin, Dan Block, and others give varying definitions of what it means to worship.
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/six-definitions-of-worship/
Our new podcast episode with Tim Keller, talking about cancer, what books shaped him, defining evangelicalism, Christian celebrity, and the Young, the Restless, and the Reformed.
Seeds Family Worship is music-based ministry that creates modern word for word scripture songs and videos to help kids memorize the Bible!
The official music video for “Promises” featuring Joe L. Barnes and Naomi Raine by Maverick City Music.
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/promises-feat-joe-l-barnes-naomi-raine/
From biblical theology to systematic theology, from aging to being married to a pastor, this month’s offering from Crossway has a wide range of books to strengthen your faith.
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/whats-new-from-crossway-in-january/