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Praying Together II: Leading in Prayer

By Media Gratiae — 16 hours ago

This week we continue our series on the corporate prayer service. As stated last week, we are sharing the first of two sermons Jeremy Walker preached to his congregation on corporate prayer. Taken from 1 Corinthians 14:16 and Acts 4:24, Jeremy seeks to give practical counsel for those leading out in the prayer service. He discusses how we can come into the service prepared to pray. He also hits on ways we can be a blessing or a discouragement to brothers and sisters in the congregation with us by things as simple as the volume of our prayer.
Next week Jeremy and Teddy will continue the series by seeking to answer the question: What if my church doesn’t have a prayer service? How can I help get one started as a pastor? How can I encourage my pastor to start one?
Show Notes:
Resources from Jeremy Walker
A Word in Season – https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/a-word-in-season
From the Heart of Spurgeon Podcast – https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon
Some of our favorite books by Jeremy:
Life in Christ – https://www.heritagebooks.org/products/life-in-christ-becoming-and-being-a-disciple-of-the-lord-jesus-christ-walker.html The Brokenhearted Evangelist – https://www.heritagebooks.org/products/the-brokenhearted-evangelist-walker.html
Books by Jeremy Walker at Reformation Heritage Books: https://www.heritagebooks.org/Search.html#/Search.html?search=Jeremy+Walker
Want to listen to The Whole Counsel on the go? Subscribe to the podcast on your favorite podcast app: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts
You can get The Whole Counsel a day early on the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app

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Distinguishing Shame from Guilt

By John Piper — 17 hours ago

What is the difference between guilt and shame? And when do true feelings of guilt or shame become false feelings that reject God’s grace?

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Distinguishing Shame from Guilt

By John Piper — 17 hours ago

Audio Transcript

We get absolutely flooded with questions here at APJ — way more than we could ever get to, as you know if you’ve read the stats I put in my little history of this podcast in the APJ book. But here’s something interesting that you might not know: Quite a few of those questions coming in are actually from authors who are working on new book projects. It’s quite something to see Ask Pastor John episodes popping up in the footnotes of books these days. And there’s a very good chance today’s episode is going to show up in a future footnote as well, because our question today comes from author Scott Christensen. Scott is a heavy hitter when it comes to tackling big questions. Just look at his books: What about Free Will? and What about Evil? Not exactly light reading (though he does do shorter versions of these books too, bless him). Scott’s new project dives into true and false shame, true and false guilt — pretty meaty stuff. He’s sent us this email.

“Pastor John, hello! I’ve got three questions for you. First up, how do you separate shame from guilt? Then, what makes false shame and false guilt different from the real thing? And finally — where does each one come from? I keep thinking the conscience must play a huge role in all this. Thank you!”

Back in the 1980s, I wrestled a good deal with the concepts of shame and guilt because they were very prominent in pop psychology. There was a popular book, for example, by John Bradshaw called Healing the Shame That Binds You, published in 1988. That book was shaping a lot of the discourse in evangelicalism and around my church. I found that book very problematical. But in the last forty years, I haven’t kept up with the way psychotherapy is talking about shame and guilt, so I don’t know if what I’m going to say right now is going to connect directly with what people who are studying these things today would think, but we’ll see.

The common definition in psychotherapy back then was this: While guilt is painful regret and responsibility for one’s actions, shame is a painful feeling about oneself as a person. I didn’t then and I don’t now embrace that definition, mainly because it’s not the definition used in the Bible. Using that definition makes understanding and applying the Bible more difficult, which is what I do and want to do; I want to understand the Bible and apply the Bible to shame and guilt.

Biblical Guilt and Shame

Here’s my effort to define and distinguish guilt and shame based on the way the Bible talks about these realities. Guilt is the moral and legal condition of deserving punishment for real wrongdoing. A person may feel guilty, but his feeling is not the same as the guilt. The feeling may be justified if there’s true guilt, or the feeling may be unjustified if there’s no true guilt. You can feel guilty and not be guilty, and you can be guilty and not feel guilty. The Bible doesn’t use the word guilt or the concept of guilt for a feeling. One may or may not have that feeling and yet be truly guilty.

“Consciences need to be recalibrated so that they don’t condemn us as guilty when we have not done wrong.”

So, guilt assumes a moral law or a moral standard and a system by which a person is held accountable for infractions of that moral standard. Guilt is the condition of being called to account for those infractions of the moral law. It’s not a matter of how one feels about reality. The book of James says, “Whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it” (James 2:10). The Greek word James uses, enochos, is used in the New Testament ten times and always means deserving of or liable to punishment for real wrongdoing. So, there’s a biblical concept of guilt that refers to the moral and legal condition of deserving punishment for real wrongdoing. It’s not a feeling; it’s a moral and legal status before the law of God or man.

Shame is different. The basic idea is a negative, painful emotion of disgrace or humiliation caused by evildoing or shortcoming or impropriety. (I’ll illustrate that in just a minute.) And this emotion is defined in part by the fact that other people think you should indeed be ashamed. Other people are watching; other people are assessing. So, the basic idea is the painful emotion of disgrace as others watch us.

But the meaning of the word shame is expanded beyond that in the Bible to refer to the behavior or the condition that brings down the emotion of shame. For example, Paul says some people “glory in their shame” (Philippians 3:19). Those people don’t feel shame — they don’t, but they should. And the behavior that is shameful and should make them ashamed is called their shame. Or in Hebrews 12:2, it says Jesus despised “the shame” of the cross. That means that a condition that ordinarily ought to overwhelm a person with shame — namely, hanging naked on a cross — Jesus steadfastly resisted for the joy that was set before him. So, shame in the Bible is a painful emotion of disgrace or humiliation — or the behavior or the condition that would ordinarily cause such an emotion as people look on.

Separating True from False

Now, what about true and false guilt, true and false shame? A person is truly guilty if he did wrong before the law of God or the just law of man, and a person is not guilty if he has done no such wrong. If he has done wrong, he should feel his guilt. This is what a healthy conscience is for. If he has not done wrong, he should not feel guilty, no matter how many people try to make him feel guilty, no matter whether his conscience indicts him or not. He’s not guilty if he hasn’t done the wrong.

There are areas where our consciences need to be, as Andy Naselli has helpfully written, recalibrated. Consciences need to be recalibrated so that they don’t condemn us as guilty when we have not done wrong. There is an objective reality that we can conform to, and our consciences might condemn us when we haven’t done anything wrong. We need to recalibrate our consciences according to the word of God. If a person is forgiven by God on the basis of Jesus taking our punishment on himself, he should not feel guilty even though he did the wrong, because the wrong is now covered. It’s been duly punished.

What about true and false shame, good and bad shame? A few illustrations might help. Suppose you cheat and lie on your income tax return in order to hold back proper taxes. A year goes by, and your conscience bothers you because you really are guilty, but you don’t feel shame. It’s all private; nobody knows. Then the IRS comes knocking. The word gets out to everybody you know in your church and in your community that you lied, you were caught red-handed, you have been fined and humiliated — and then you feel shame. And you ought to feel shame. That’s proper shame, true shame, good shame. And you should want not only to receive God’s forgiveness, which is available in Christ for your true guilt, your true wrongdoing, but you should also want to regain your good name and trust in the community, which may take longer and involves a good bit of faithful, humble obedience and upright living.

Or suppose you’ve trained for months to run a 1500-meter race, and you’re competing with other runners in front of a thousand people, and it turns out that they are so superior to you that all of them cross the finish line and you are still three hundred meters behind. So, while they’re celebrating, you’re still running while a thousand people watch you. Should you be ashamed? Well, yes, if you were out partying until one in the morning and wrecking your training the night before, you should. But no, not if you did your best. If you feel ashamed having done your God-given best, it probably means you love the praise of man more than the praise of God.

Or suppose you simply commit an impropriety. You go to a party thinking you’re dressed appropriately, and when you get there, you find out everybody else is dressed differently, and you look totally out of place. Now, there’s no guilt here — it’s an honest mistake — but you probably feel embarrassed. But there should be no mortifying shame. A Christian should have such a strong sense of being loved and accepted, invested in significant life and work by God, that such a mistake quickly passes into forgetfulness.

Well, so much more could be said. Chapter 10 in my book Future Grace is all about shame and how to overcome it. But I hope this is at least helpful in pointing to how I would try to answer our friend’s questions.

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Peter Denies Jesus (Part 1 of 2)

By [email protected] [email protected] Alistair B — 19 hours ago

When something’s broken, it’s usually considered useless and tossed out. Listen to Truth For Life as Alistair Begg gives a brief overview of the highs and lows of Peter’s faith, explaining why brokenness played a significant role in shaping his usefulness.

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This listener-funded program features the clear, relevant Bible teaching of Alistair Begg. Today’s program and nearly 3,000 messages can be streamed and shared for free at tfl.org thanks to the generous giving from monthly donors called Truthpartners. Learn more about this Gospel-sharing team or become one today. Thanks for listening to Truth For Life!

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Thursday, April 3, 2025

By R. Albert Mohler Jr. — 22 hours ago

This is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.Part I (00:13 – 09:14)A Big Loss in Wisconsin: The Politicization of the Judiciary and Major Liberal Win Tuesday in WisconsinPart II (09:14 – 10:12)Where are the Conservatives on Election Day? Republicans Turn Out for Trump, But Have a Huge Problem When It Comes to Special ElectionsPart III (10:12 – 22:34)A Third Term for President Trump? He May Be Joking, But Real Obstacles Remain and Dangers LurkTwenty-Second Amendment by Constitution of the United StatesTrump Attorney Studied Options for Third Presidential Term by The Wall Street Journal (Annie Linskey and Josh Dawsey)Part IV (22:34 – 29:01)The President’s Comprehensive Tariff Announcement: Is Trump’s Strategy Right? Will It Work? – Only Time Will TellSign up to receive The Briefing in your inbox every weekday morning.Follow Dr. Mohler:X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTubeFor more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu.For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.To write Dr. Mohler or submit a question for The Mailbox, go here.

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The Power of the Holy Spirit to Open Blind Eyes

By TFL — 22 hours ago

Dear Friend,
The arrival of spring signals all kinds of new beginnings. Plants that have been dormant “spring” into life, and birdsong, long silent, beckons us to a new day. The clocks change, and Easter arrives, bringing us once again to the cross, the empty tomb, and then to the ascension and Pentecost. At Pentecost, we are reminded of the indispensable work of the Holy Spirit in the believer’s life.

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Sane New World?

By Carl R. Trueman — 23 hours ago

Written by Carl R. Trueman |
Thursday, April 3, 2025

Our morality is not the function of a vibe. Our truths are not the expression of cultural taste. We must heed Paul’s call to meditate upon things that are above… Only then can we act with discernment and with Christian fortitude, wisdom, and love in the context God has placed us.

With the second coming of Donald Trump, the phrase “vibe shift” has become a staple of current cultural commentary. The expression captures not so much the shift in the kind of policies that the Trump administration will implement as a shift in the ethos of America. The hectoring scolds of the progressive left have dominated public rhetoric for years. Now suddenly conservatives once despised as either stupid, evil, or both are starting to feel that this age might belong to them.
As a cultural conservative, I find much to welcome here. And as somebody who has spent much time speaking about, and talking to, the victims of transgender ideology, I rejoice that the political tide might finally be turning. Perhaps gender sanity is not the last vestige of a bygone era but the vanguard of a world about to be born. If the vibe shift carries society toward laws that protect innocent children from the hormonal and genital mutilation demanded by the political tastes of their parents’ generation, that is surely a matter for rejoicing.
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Was God Crucified?

By Wyatt Graham — 23 hours ago

We may say that God was crucified, even that God shed his blood, only when we speak of the flesh that God the Son made his very own.

Orthodox Christians sometimes accuse Protestants of Nestorianism because of how theologians like John Calvin speak of the cross. We instinctively want to say that only the humanity of Christ died on the cross because divinity is immortal by nature. And after all, if we say God died on the cross, we imply that the Father and Spirit died too—but that sounds too close to Modalism, a teaching that claims that the Father died on the cross because Father and Son are one subject.
Even so, Paul does say, “Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood” (Acts 20:28). The phrase “his own blood” (τοῦ αἵματος τοῦ ἰδίου) refers back to God. Given this and other biblical passages, theologians like Cyril of Alexandria were bold to say that the Lord of Glory made human flesh his very own, and thus God the Son died.
The distinction of making flesh one’s own matters. Nestorius taught that God was impassible (unable to suffer) by nature, and so what died at the cross was the man assumed by the impassible Logos. Cyril disagreed. If the Logos made flesh his very own, he experienced death precisely in that created flesh.
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What Is Partitive Exegesis?

By Jacob Trotter — 23 hours ago

If we do not interpret Scriptures concerning Christ correctly—in light of the reality they describe—we end up with a God who thirsts, sleeps, suffers, submits, and lacks knowledge. We also end up with a man who is omnipotent, omnipresent, and eternal. If we fail to retain the properties of each nature to themselves, we blend them and start on the short road to heresy.

“You just had to be there!”
We fall back on this excuse when words fail to capture the precise reality of an experience—often a comedic interaction or visual beauty. The reality is that reality itself is often hard to describe. We do our best to describe it with words, but we’ve all experienced the frustration of falling short.
This is especially true when we use our words to describe God. Herman Bavinck asks, “The moment we dare to speak about God the question arises: How can we?”[1] The same question can be asked of the person of Christ: When we dare to speak about the One who is both infinite God and finite man, how can we?
Scripture tells us Jesus slept, ate, walked, and learned new things. But it also tells us He created the universe, sustains it, and is omniscient. You can see the dilemma—how do we accurately describe Jesus when He has these seemingly contradictory categories?
We can navigate this difficulty through a practice known as partitive exegesis. Partitive exegesis presupposes that Christ’s two natures are unified in His person without confusion, change, division, or separation. Therefore, we must recognize and maintain the distinction between Christ’s two natures when we read the Bible.[2] While that may sound complicated, this practice arises from Scripture itself—it is an inspired way of describing the reality of the incarnation.
A Biblical Pattern
As we read through the New Testament, we see passages variously emphasize attributes of both Christ’s humanity and His divinity. Consider these five ways that the Bible makes statements about Christ.

When Jesus said, “Before Abraham was, I am,” the person is the subject, but the attribute (eternality) is only appropriate for the divine nature (John 8:58).
When Jesus said, “I thirst,” the person is the subject, but thirst is only appropriate for the human nature (John 19:28).
Titles like “Redeemer” or “King” are applied to Christ and is appropriate for both natures (Psalm 10:16; Luke 1:32–33).

So far, so good. But Scripture also contains more complicated statements about Christ.

Some things are ascribed to Christ that are appropriate to the human nature but predicated on Christ as divine. In Revelation 1:17–18, Christ identifies Himself as “the first and the last” (a divine title), then He says He “was dead” (something only possible for a human). A human quality (death) is applied to the person even though the Son as God is emphasized in this passage.
On the other hand, some things are ascribed to Christ that are appropriate to the divine nature but predicated on Christ as human. John 6:62 refers to “the Son of Man ascending to where He was before.” “Son of Man” emphasizes Christ’s humanity, but ascending to “where He was before” can only be truly said of Christ as divine.[3]

In each of these instances, Scripture applies a property true of one or both natures to the person. It is our job as interpreters to discern which attributes are appropriate for each nature.
While some people may object that we read too strong of a distinction between the natures, the Bible itself uses this logic as well. Romans 1:3 says that Christ “was born of a descendant of David according to the flesh.” Christ is not descended from David according to the divinity. This is logically obvious, but Paul makes it verbally explicit.[4]
Partitive exegesis is an attempt to apply this same inspired logic to every biblical statement about Christ. Some things are true of Christ according to His humanity and some things are true of Christ according to His divinity.
This way of thinking was worked out in the early church. As Chalcedon states, “The distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved, and concurring in one Person.” Because the two natures are unified in the person of Christ, anything said of either nature is true of the person (“concurring in one Person”) while remaining untrue of the other nature (“the property of each nature being preserved”).
Yet, some confusion may arise in light of examples 4–5 above. How do we interpret those verses that apply the property of one nature to the other?
The Communication of Properties
The properties of both natures are predicated on the person. However, because both natures are united in the one person, Scripture seemingly attributes properties of one nature to the other. This biblical way of speaking has become known as the “communication of idioms” or “communication of properties.”
This is described in the 1689 London Baptist Confession, 8.7: “Christ, in the work of mediation, acts according to both natures, by each nature doing that which is proper to itself; yet by reason of the unity of the person, that which is proper to one nature is sometimes in Scripture, attributed to the person denominated by the other nature.”
Consider these verses:

Acts 20:28, “Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood.”

1 Corinthians 2:8, “The wisdom which none of the rulers of this age has understood; for if they had understood it they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.”
Zechariah 12:10, [Yahweh says] “I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication, so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced; and they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn.”

In each example, something human (blood, crucifixion, and death) is predicated of divinity (God, the Lord of Glory, and Yahweh). Does God, who is spirit (John 4:24) have blood? Can the Lord, who has life in Himself (John 5:26), be crucified? Can Yahweh be “pierced?”
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Cultural Christianity

By Thiago M. Silva — 23 hours ago

Written by Thiago M. Silva |
Thursday, April 3, 2025
For Christ’s followers, cultural affirmations of Christianity present both a challenge and an opportunity. The challenge is to avoid settling for cultural acceptance or admiration. To be a Christian isn’t to align yourself with a set of traditions or ethical teachings. It’s to belong to Christ.

In recent years, some of the most unlikely voices have publicly acknowledged Christianity’s positive influence. Richard Dawkins, Elon Musk, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and Tom Holland—figures once aligned with skepticism toward Christianity—have made striking statements affirming its cultural and moral value. Dawkins, one of the foremost critics of religion, has described himself as a “cultural Christian,” admiring the Christian ethos and traditions like hymns and carols. Similarly, Musk recently called the teachings of Jesus “good and wise.”
While these acknowledgments are surprising and even encouraging, they raise an important question: Is cultural Christianity enough? As believers, how should we respond to those who admire Christianity’s legacy but stop short of embracing the gospel?
The Good: Christianity’s Cultural Legacy
Cultural Christianity, at its best, recognizes the faith’s profound influence on the world. Holland has described how Western civilization owes much of its moral and ethical framework to Christianity. Concepts like human dignity, equality, and care for the vulnerable are rooted in Scripture. Holland has pointed out how slavery’s abolition, care for the poor, and the establishment of universal human rights all find their foundation in Christian theology.
This cultural legacy remains even in the secular West. When skeptics like Dawkins affirm that Christianity has been “fundamentally decent” compared to other belief systems, they acknowledge the fruit of a faith that has shaped societies for millennia. Such statements point to the truth that biblical teachings transcend individual belief and have the power to transform entire cultures.
In a time when secular ideologies increasingly challenge basic Christian values—like the sanctity of life, the reality of biological sex, and the institution of marriage—these acknowledgments of Christianity’s cultural influence remind us of the enduring relevance of our faith. The gospel has deeply shaped what we often take for granted in the Western world.
The Bad: Cultural Christianity’s Failure
But while cultural Christianity has merits, it ultimately falls short. Reducing Christianity to a set of values or traditions strips the gospel of its power. It acknowledges the fruit of Christian faith without embracing the root—Jesus Christ.
Scripture warns against a superficial association with faith. Writing to Timothy, Paul describes those who have “the appearance of godliness, but [deny] its power” (2 Tim. 3:5). Cultural Christianity can produce a sense of moral or social alignment with Christian values, but it can’t address the deepest human problem: sin. It offers no hope for humanity’s ultimate need for reconciliation with God.
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