Every now and again I like to publicly reply to some of the questions that come my way via email (or, as is largely the case today, through events I have attended). Here are my answers to a selection of questions I thought were particularly interesting.

How can you encourage someone who is struggling with habitual sin?
In different areas and to different degrees we all struggle with habitual sins. And we will continue to do so until we are in the presence of the Lord. So I suppose the first thing I would want to communicate is that you are not alone in battling deeply-rooted sin. This is the normal Christian experience. And then I would want to encourage you that the fact that you are struggling against this sin and that you are eager to see progress against it is evidence of the Lord’s work within you. It is God who helps us identify sin and who gives us the longing to be free of it.
Yet the normalcy of sin should in no way permit complacency in battling hard against it. Bound up in the word “habitual” is “habit” which helps show both the difficulty of the challenge and the solution. We are creatures of habit. Over time we create habits that are hard to break. This is wonderful when those habits are positive and terrible when they are negative.
So when you identify a habitual sin, you need to trace the ways in which you have trained yourself to follow particular patterns of behavior. Once you understand how this sin follows a behavioral pattern, you need to interrupt the habit at the very root and not just the point at which you commit the actual sin. In fact. You need to interrupt it at the point of desire, and not just action. Meanwhile, you need to discipline yourself to develop new and better habits. When we discuss matters like “spiritual disciplines,” we are really just discussing the habits of the Christian life that will lead us into godliness.
All the while remember that it is Christ who gives you the desire and the ability to put sin to death and to come alive to righteousness. He does not leave you alone in this task, but indwells you by his Spirit. You can have confidence in this battle that God is battling with you, for you, and within you. And the battle is not merely about the actions we take, but the very things our hearts desire.
What are the most important things to look for in a spouse?
Character, character, and character. Obviously, there are other matters to consider like some degree of physical attraction, shared life goals, and similar doctrinal convictions. Yet nothing counts for more than Christian character. Lemuel got it right when he said, “Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised” (Proverbs 31:30). And so, too, is a man.
The person you marry will have the closest view of your sinfulness and will offer the most input on addressing it. Would you rather this person be known for Christian character or vocational success?
The person you marry will accompany you through some deep and dark valleys of suffering and sorrow. Are you likely to endure these times better with a beautiful person or with a godly one?
The person you marry will have the most significant impact on the spiritual and social development of your children. Would you rather have them raised by a person focused on wealth or a person focused on godliness?
You may find a person who has all of this and more. But if we are addressing priorities in a potential spouse, there is no priority more important and more desirable than distinctly Christian character. This is the one that must trump all others.
Is there biblically anything wrong with a single woman indicating interest in a single man or even making the first move by inviting him out for a coffee?
The Bible has a lot to say about marriage and about the relationship between a husband and a wife. But it has very little to say about the process of getting there. And I suspect this is because that process tends to be closely bound to cultural norms. In biblical times most marriages were arranged (e.g. Isaac and Rebekah) or pseudo-arranged (e.g. Jacob and Leah/Rachel) within family or cultural relationships. What we know in a modern Western context as “dating” would have been as foreign to them as arranged marriages are to most of us.
There are probably a couple of useful biblical principles we can muster to our cause. Marriage is to be “in the Lord,” so that Christians must only pursue other Christians (1 Corinthians 7:39). Unmarried Christians are to relate to one another in a way similar to family members, so that men are to treat “older women as mothers, younger women as sisters, in all purity” (1 Timothy 5:2). It’s good to fix in your mind that “if she’s not your wife, she’s your sister” (or, “if he’s not your husband, he’s your brother.”). And, of course, we must always love, serve, honor, and protect one another, and perhaps especially so in areas of special vulnerability like love and romance.
With all that said, I can’t think of a place where the Bible forbids women from making the first move, indicating interest, or prompting a coffee date. Neither do I think this introduces any necessary concern that it will forever invert gender roles so that, should the couple marry, the man will never be the leader in the home.
To push a little more, it could be that God has gifted a particular woman, or perhaps even all women, to be more perceptive than men in certain ways. I often think of Miller’s words that “woman’s quick intuition often sees at a glance what man’s slow logic is long in discovering.” This has certainly proven true in my experience. Either way, if a woman sees a possibility a man does not, the Bible gives no notion that it would be wrong for her to express it.
The fact is, God gives us freedom in many areas and where there is no clear biblical command or direction we do not need to fear transgressing his will. Many such fears are more about transcending cultural traditions than ones the Bible is concerned about.
What should the Christian’s response to drag shows in front of children in libraries be? Should there be a course of action other than prayer?
The rise of drag shows for children is one of the most obvious and distressing realities—or symbolic acts, even—of life in the late stages of the sexual revolution. It stands alongside transgenderism as the clearest evidence of the ways humanity is eager to both invert and pervert God’s design and to do so among even the youngest and most vulnerable people. There is something almost sacramental about it.
This question twice uses the word should which implies some kind of moral responsibility—that there is a necessary set of actions a Christian must take to be faithful to the Lord in the light of drag shows. Yet I am struck that in New Testament times there were many hideously inappropriate and exploitative forms of entertainment and many horrible social practices and customs, yet when God addressed Christians through the biblical writers, he did not demand certain responses to them. Rather, he addressed their own desires, motives, and actions and presumably gave them freedom to respond in different ways according to opportunity, position, burden, and so on.
And I think this is instructive. There are myriad social ills and none of us has the time, capacity, or knowledge to address them all. Meanwhile, it seems that God burdens us differently so that where one person may have a deep concern for the cause of abortion, another will have a deep concern for the cause of euthanasia, and another for the cause of drag shows. I think we can take these burdens as being from the Lord and to follow them into action toward that specific cause. This does not mean we are ambivalent about other issues, but merely that they do not press so deeply upon our hearts. We must always be careful that we do not judge the faithfulness of others by their passion for our preferred cause. It’s better far to understand and rejoice that God is working in a thousand ways through the diverse gifts, desires, and burdens he gives to his people.
So I suppose I would say that there is no necessary action any of us must take in the light of drag shows at schools and libraries other than to live godly, upright lives. The better question might be something like this: What could be the Christian’s response to drag shows in front of children in libraries? In that case, prayer is certainly first and key. Beyond that, much will depend on context and opportunity. Some may wish to approach the issue politically, some may wish to write op-eds in local papers, some may wish to register concern at a school board meeting, some may wish to protest or picket, and so on. There are many ways Christians can express their dismay and concern and to speak God’s truth in the face of man’s lies.
How can I acknowledge and address laziness in my life?
Why don’t you start by admitting your need for rest. God made us as weak, limited, finite creatures. Even in a perfect world the perfect God built in a pattern of rest, then codified it in his Law: “Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God.… For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day.” We are to work hard in this world, but also to rest. We have been given sober responsibilities by the Lord, yet responsibilities that do not supplant the necessity to rest. Put simply, we cannot honor God if we do not cease from our work. It’s for this reason that it’s wise to build regular patterns of rest—weekly rest, periodic rest, annual rest, and so on.
When we have admitted our need for rest we can then consider when and if we are making time to do so. We are resting when we are deliberately stepping away from our day-to-day responsibilities, and especially those related to our primary vocations. This will look as different as our lives and circumstances. The rest of a retiree may bear little resemblance to the rest of a nursing mother, or the rest of a farmer to the rest of a school teacher.
Once we have learned to rest and have built patterns of rest, we are in a position to evaluate whether we are truly resting or merely being lazy. If an activity or period of inactivity is in some way equipping us to take up our God-given duties with fresh energy it is rest; if it’s just escaping from our God-given duty and sapping our energy, it may well be laziness. (Also see this)

Grace and peace to you on this fine day.

Today’s Kindle deals include a nice selection from Crossway.
(Yesterday on the blog: The Bible Never Offers a Drink from Shallow Waters)
Analogies for the Trinity Considered, Including Bad Ones
This is an interesting observation: “The Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed, which are the two most important confessions of faith that teach the doctrine of the Trinity, never even use the word ‘three.’ They say nothing about ‘how God is three in one.’ Rather, they teach that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. You can count to three if you want, but it’s hardly essential, and in fact you’ll understand the doctrine better if you forget about counting.”
The Kigali Commitment — the statement from GAFCON 4
This was an encouraging report from GAFCON (despite this sad intro). “In a couple of weeks, King Charles III will swear in his Coronation Oath to maintain and defend ‘the true profession of the gospel… the Protestant Reformed religion’. Sadly, the current leadership of the Church of England has chosen not to maintain and defend this faith but to subvert and replace it with something else more amenable to modern culture.”
Lessons About God from Job
This is a helpful summary of the big message at the heart of the book of Job.
4 Benefits of Developing Position Papers in a Ministry Context
“Going through the process of developing position papers increased our clarity, confidence, compassion, and consistency.” Our elders have found the same as we’ve worked through the issues and written out position papers.
My Son’s Short Life Was Not a Waste
“Tugi Mbugua Musyimi was a part of our family for nine months. God began knitting him together in his mother’s womb at some point in July 2022. From the moment we first learned of his existence, we were excited as God answered our prayer to grow our family.” John Musyimi testifies to God’s purposes even through sorrow.
Why God Made You for Membership
“In an age that suspects and even despises authority, church membership is a loud, arresting statement of our devotion to Christ.”
Flashback: Deconstruction, Exvangelicals, and Jumping Overboard from an Ocean Liner
We hear a lot about “deconstruction” these days and a lot about “exvangelicals.” And though the terms may be new, the reality is as old as the church itself—some will profess faith for a time and then fall away.

The great enemy of peace is the consciousness of sin. He who would give us peace must deal with that first. —F.B. Meyer

I am new to the writings of George Herbert Morrison, but was quickly taken with this quote about the Bible—about the way it meets our needs and the way it satisfies our spiritual hunger. I hope you’ll enjoy it too!

Whenever the Almighty satisfies his creatures, he gives them drink as abundant as the seas. Think of the Bible—an ancient book and yet intensely modern and practical. Think of the ages that have gone since it was written; think of the life we [now] live and of the stress and strain unknown in the quiet East; to me it is wonderful that the Bible should be of any use at all now and not have moved into the quiet of libraries to be the joy of the unworldly scholar.
But one thing is certain—the Bible meets the need of modern life. As a practical guide there is no book to touch it. There is not a problem you are called to face and not a duty you are called to do, there is not a cross you are compelled to carry and not a burden you are forced to bear but your strength for it all will be as the strength of ten—if you make a daily companion of your Bible.
The Bible never offers a drink from shallow waters. There, you do not find a set of petty maxims, but the everlasting love of God; you do not find any shallow views of sin, but a Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. And that is the secret of the Bible’s permanence—when our little systems have ceased to be, for sin and sorrow and life and death and duty, it gives us drink “as abundant as the seas.”
Think of Jesus in relation to his words. If ever words were as water to a thirsty world, surely it was the words that Jesus spoke. How simple they were and yet how deep! How tender and full of love and yet how searching! There are those whose lives so contradict their words that when you know the people you cannot listen to them. And there are those who are so much less than their own words that when you come to know them you are disappointed. But what people felt about Jesus Christ was this, that when all was uttered, the half was never told, for at the back of all his words there was himself, deeper unfathomably than his deepest speech. That is why the words of Christ will live even when heaven and earth have passed away. You can exhaust the cup or drain the goblet, but you cannot exhaust the spring fed from the deeps. And just because the words of Jesus Christ spring from the depths of that divine humanity, they will save and strengthen the obedient heart to the last recorded syllable of time.

I am once again grateful to Children’s Hunger Fund for sponsoring the blog this week. “Across the US and in 29 countries around the world, faithful pastors and church volunteers from Children’s Hunger Fund church partners have dedicated their time to serving children and families in desperate situations.”

(Yesterday on the blog: The Gospel of Jesus)
Political Life Begins in the Church
Patrick Schreiner has an important article about the church’s primary (though not necessarily sole) political witness to the world.
Trusting God with The I-Don’t-Knows
“A mysterious curtain hangs just beyond this immediate present moment shielding our gaze from endless I-Don’t-Knows. Those I-Don’t-Knows are numerous, quite humbling, and often painful.”
Moses, the Mountain, and a Mass of Email
“Christians and non-Christians alike constantly talk about the need for ‘self-care’ these days. I wonder if farmers, working 80 hours a week in 1950s America, thought about ‘self-care.’ That is a rhetorical question.” Of course it is!
Once More, Church and Culture
There is a lot to ponder in this long article about the relationship of church and culture. “To ask about the church’s place in society while living in Christendom is redundant. The question answers itself. The question is genuinely new, however, when posed after Christendom.”
Freedom from the Burden of People Pleasing
Susan Narjala: “As a child, I learned to colour inside the lines. I do not mean just in art class, but that nature and nurture moulded me into a rule-follower.” She goes on to discuss how we can find freedom from people pleasing.
Could AI replace my pastor?
“The latest iteration of the chat bot can apparently produce sermons. You tell it your passage, how many points you want and point and shoot and away it goes. What you end up will be grammatically correct and may read well, though I think it comes across as a bit sterile. But to think that it is a sermon is to think wrongly about what preaching is.”

Just as evangelicals will fight their own individual sin as they keep in step with the Spirit, so we must fight the collective sin of allowing anything but the gospel to be the cause of our unity. —Michael Reeves

This week’s Free Stuff Friday is sponsored by Children’s Hunger Fund (CHF). They have three book bundles for giveaway, featuring titles that have both influenced CHF’s ministry and will hopefully encourage you and your famil y. Each giveaway package will also include hand-selected items from the Children’s Hunger Fund store. The giveaway will close on Monday, April 24 at noon EST.

Lead: 12 Gospel Principles for Leadership in the Church by Paul David Tripp
The church is experiencing a leadership crisis. What can we do to prevent pastors from leaving the ministry?
For every celebrity pastor exiting the ministry in the spotlight, there are many lesser-known pastors leaving in the shadows. Pastor and best-selling author Paul David Tripp argues that lurking behind every pastoral failure is the lack of a strong leadership community. Tripp draws on his decades of ministry experience to give churches twelve gospel principles necessary to combat this leadership crisis.
Each of these principles, built upon characteristics such as humility, dependency, and accountability, will enable new and experienced leaders alike to focus their attention on the ultimate leadership model: the gospel.

Agape Leadership: Lessons in Spiritual Leadership from the Life of R.C. Chapman by Alexander Strauch and Robert L. Peterson
Today we are desperately in need of examples of true Christian leadership. In the life of Robert Chapman we have such an example. Chapman was a widely respected Christian leader in England during the last century as a pastor, a teacher, and an evangelist. But he was best known for his remarkable life of love.
Chapman became legendary in his own time for his gracious ways, his patience, his kindness, his balanced judgment, his ability to reconcile people in conflict, his absolute fidelity to Scripture, and his loving pastoral care. By the end of his life, Chapman was known worldwide for his love, wisdom and compassion. He became so well known in England that a letter from abroad addressed only to “R.C. Chapman, University of Love, England” was correctly delivered to him.
In Agape Leadership, you will see godly, pastoral leadership in action through these biographical snapshots from Chapman’s life.

The Moon Is Always Round by Jonathan Gibson, illustrated by Joe Hox
Even young children want answers to the hard questions about God and suffering. In The Moon Is Always Round, seminary professor and author Jonathan Gibson uses the vivid imagery of the moon to explain to children how God’s goodness is always present, even when it might appear to be obscured by upsetting or difficult circumstances.
In this beautiful, full-color illustrated book, he allows readers to eavesdrop on the conversations he had with his young son in response to his sister’s death. Father and son share a simple liturgy together that reminds them that, just as the moon is always round despite its different phases, so also the goodness of God is always present throughout the different phases of life.
A section in the back of the book offers further biblical help for parents and caregivers in explaining God’s goodness to children. Jonathan Gibson reminds children of all ages that God’s goodness is present in the most difficult of times, even if we can’t always see it.
All you need to do to enter the drawing is drop your name and email address in the form below.
Giveaway Rules
You may enter one time. When you enter, you permit Children’s Hunger Fund to send you marketing emails. The winners will be notified via email. The giveaway closes on Monday, April 24 at noon EST.

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We have access to some amazing resources meant to help us better understand the Bible. From commentaries to lexicons to systematic theologies, we of all people are most blessed. One especially helpful resource that will help devotional Bible readers as much as pastors or theologians is a harmonized narrative of the life of Jesus.

God could have given us just one account of the life of his Son, but in his wisdom he saw fit to give us four. And while Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John all write biographies of the same individual, they all write in different voices, at different times, for different audiences, and for different purposes. They sometimes provide overlapping information and sometimes provide information unique to them. Sometimes they overlap in content but not in perspective or detail. It can all become a little confusing to know how all the parts fit together logically and chronologically.
Many years ago Lorraine Boettner assembled a harmony of the four gospels. He took the words of the gospels and arranged them chronologically as a single narrative, removing any repetition (which means that his book is only about three-quarters the length of the source material). P&R has just re-released this as The Gospel of Jesus, a beautifully-crafted and well-formatted hardcover book. This new edition changes the Bible translation from the outdated ASV to the contemporary Christian Standard Bible, a highly-regarded translation that employs “optimal equivalence” to describe its commitment to maintaining the form of the original language while still conveying its meaning in a way that is easy to understand today.
While the book is formatted to make it simple to read, the editors did include the various Scripture references in the margins. Where there are two or more accounts of the same event, the most exhaustive one forms the heart of the account and square brackets are used to indicate where supplemental detail has been drawn in from a different gospel. Headings have been added to guide the chronology. And passages drawn from the Old Testament have been bolded to make clear when the various individuals are not speaking their own words, but quoting God’s. There are also some small notations to indicate where Jesus is engaging in confrontation, telling a parable, or working a miracle. (To be honest, I’m not certain why these three categories merit that kind of notation, but wonder if it may go back to the context of 1933 when Boettner first assembled this material).
A harmony of the gospels like this is tremendously helpful in assembling all that the original authors saw fit to tell us about the life of our Lord and putting it in a single narrative. That said, both Boettner and the modern editors make it clear that such a resource should not displace or replace our reading of the actual gospels. A resource like this one is helpful in its own way, but does not have the authority of the gospels themselves. As Boettner says in his preface, “It has been said that the greatest service that anyone can render is to make more available the riches of grace that are found in Christ our Savior. The present arrangement is designed to make more readily available the material found in the Gospels, and so to make more interesting and rewarding the time spent in Bible study.” This book is dedicated to that purpose and serves it well. I expect you will find it a helpful resource to introduce to your library.
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The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you today.

New at Westminster Books this week is a sale on a book from Kevin DeYoung meant for younger people.
There’s an eclectic little mix of Kindle deals today.
Four Common (and Unhelpful) Responses to the Exclusivity of Christ
“The most offensive part of the gospel, and the most common objection to Christianity proper, is the idea that there is only one way to God: Jesus. It’s offensive because it seems arrogant, bigoted, and narrow-minded. The claim is often met with one of four common and unhelpful responses. They might sound legitimate, but they aren’t. Here’s why.”
Truth in a Culture of Noise
“We are a people clamoring to be heard, but when the flood of voices drowns their own, many people will raise their pitch and resort to all kinds of hyperbole to gain an audience. Even journalists have degraded their profession by using misleading headlines to coax us into clicking their links. From politicians to personal trainers, it seems few are immune.” So true…
GOD IS FAITHFUL DESPITE WAR AND VIOLENCE IN UKRAINE
“We had never prayed so much before,” shared Lyena, a Ukrainian woman whose home was destroyed in the war. “I had never read the Psalms so thoughtfully before. It was the encouragement that brought tears of gratitude and joy. I realized that only when you walk through the valley of mortal darkness, you learn to completely trust God, and then you are not afraid, because the Lord is with you.” (Sponsored Link)
Truthful Witness and the Transgender Debate
Trevin Wax compares two different ways Christians can respond to the contemporary transgender debate. “We may wish to change the subject, but what’s the point in discussing the failures of the church to women in the past if we’re unable to even define what a woman is in the present? And as much as we might yearn for constructive dialogue about these matters, it should be clear by now that gender activists aren’t looking for conversation. Their goal is conquest…”
Radical Christian Gentleness in an Era of Addictive Outrage
George Marsden is eager for Christians to recover some of the wisdom of Jonathan Edwards. “In a striking, but too often neglected, passage in Religious Affections, Edwards insists an essential trait of any true Christian is ‘the lamblike, dovelike spirit and temper of Jesus Christ.’ He presents this point as nothing less than a fundamental of the faith.”
Hey Remember: There are Christian Schools and there are “Christian” Schools
Whether in Australia or elsewhere, it’s important to distinguish between Christian schools and “Christian” schools.
Raw Passion and Messy Missiology: A Tribute to George Verwer (1938–2023)
“One of my heroes died on April 14, 2023. His personal and global influence was inestimable.” John Piper pays tribute to George Verwer.
Flashback: One Very Good Reason to Study Church History
You have become a citizen of something with a present and a future, but also a past. And your ability to glorify God in the present and future requires knowing that past.

Hell is needed, awful, close, and deserved by every one of us. But there is a way to avoid going there. —Dane Ortlund

May the Lord be with you and bless you today.

Westminster Books has a deal on a new edition of a game-changing book.
Today’s Kindle deals include a few excellent books.
(Yesterday on the blog: A Family, Personal, and Travel Update)
Learning From Those Who Pray All Night
“To be a Christian in Tanzania is to attend all-night prayer vigils. Some churches hold them every weekend. For others, it’s once a quarter. It’s such a part of church culture that the church leaders at our Bible school expressed shock when they heard that American evangelical churches generally don’t practice this.”
Weary One, Take Heart
Christa considers how to respond in those times when we are weary and hurt.
The Awkward Duty of Encouragement: How Men Strengthen Other Men
Mack Stiles writes about the importance of men encouraging men. “Why go out of my way when it’s easier just to stay quiet? Besides, most guys seem to be doing fine anyway, right? Encouragement, however, is not just a good idea, but a biblical command — yes, even for men.”
I don’t hate my sin like I know Jesus calls me to
Neither do I. And probably neither do you.
How To Quit The Comparison Game
Seth Lewis: “The piled-up fortunes of earth eventually become piled-up inheritances for others. Fame is forgotten. Pleasures fade. Getting ahead of others can only last so long, and it can never give you lasting significance, real meaning, unshakable joy, or anything else it promises so freely like an ever-shifting, just-out-of reach mirage.”
Died: Charles Stanley, In Touch Preacher Who Led with Stubborn Faith
There was a stretch in which the preaching of Charles Stanley played a key role in my spiritual growth, and for that I will always be grateful.
Flashback: Fellowship with Godly People
Whoever longs to be godly must walk with the godly, for God has decreed that godliness will not be attained in isolation, but in community.

Every preacher who does not make prayer a mighty factor in his own life and ministry is weak as a factor in God’s work and is powerless to project God’s cause in this world. —E.M. Bounds