We find so many cases of folks arguing for their position, but too often without any real understanding of what they are criticising or arguing against. By all means argue for what you believe, but at least make sure what you are attacking is what the other side actually has said or believes.

It is quite easy to be an armchair critic. It is quite easy to attack something that you actually know little about. It is quite easy to criticise something you do not really understand. It is quite easy to think you have won a debate by ignoring what the other side says. It is quite easy to set up straw men and knock them down. It is quite easy to be a partisan if you refuse to hear what the other side is saying.
I think you get my point. Plenty of folks are happy to remain in ignorance about what they are arguing against. They might be well read on their particular side of an issue, but they have read little or nothing about or by the other side. Generally speaking, we need to know what it is we are refuting. And that means reading some of their material at the very least.
Sure, this is not always to be the case. For the Christian for example, I am NOT saying that for every book you read on Christianity, you should read one on Satanism as well. But, if your thing is to defend the faith and deal with opposing views, you should know something about the latter.
Thus if you are seeking to be a Christian apologist – even to a little extent – and want to contrast Christianity say with Islam, you should read a bit about it. Perhaps reading some of the core documents is where to begin: the Koran, the hadith, the sira, and so on.
If you are taking on the new atheists, reading some of their work is to be expected. When I wrote a two-part critique of Dawkin’s The God Delusion when it first came out in 2006, I did not rely only on other Christian assessments, but I went out and bought the book (even though I really did not want to spend money on it!).
To have a fair and honest debate with someone, knowing something about their position is of course crucial. And it is not just for debates that this is vital. Simply for clear communication with anyone on anything, this is needed. Even just for a husband and wife to get along, they need to be able to really hear and understand what the other one is saying.
So whether it is reading or listening, making sure we understand what another person is saying is crucial. In this regard, there are plenty of basic books out there on communication skills and the like. Two volumes that are a bit more intellectually inclined by the famous philosopher Mortimer Adler can be mentioned here.
One is How To Read a Book (1940) and the other is How to Speak, How to Listen (Collier, 1983). Let me offer just one quote from the first volume:
When you buy a book, you establish a property right in it, just as you do in clothes or furniture when you buy and pay for them. But the act of purchase is actually only the prelude to possession in the case of a book. Full ownership of a book only comes when you have made it a part of yourself, and the best way to make yourself a part of it—which comes to the same thing—is by writing in it. Why is marking a book indispensable to reading it? First, it keeps you awake—not merely conscious, but wide awake. Second, reading, if it is active, is thinking, and thinking tends to express itself in words, spoken or written. The person who says he knows what he thinks but cannot express it usually does not know what he thinks. Third, writing your reactions down helps you to remember the thoughts of the author. Reading a book should be a conversation between you and the author. Presumably he knows more about the subject than you do; if not, you probably should not be bothering with his book. But understanding is a two-way operation; the learner has to question himself and question the teacher. He even has to be willing to argue with the teacher, once he understands what the teacher is saying. Marking a book is literally an expression of your differences or your agreements with the author. It is the highest respect you can pay him. (p. 49)
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We ought to be asking, how should Christians live in this time at this cultural moment? And the answer is simple: faithfully, just like other believers who have lived in similar times and similar cultural moments. There is nothing more demanded of us from the Lord than that we seek to live faithful lives to him in whatever time and culture he has placed us. 

I read an article recently that asked the question, how are we to live in what feel like unprecedented times? I like the way that question was framed because of the care that was taken with it. Times may feel unprecedented, but in reality, the Bible is clear enough ‘there is nothing new under the sun’ (Ecclesiastes 1:9).
I am just not so convinced that we do live in unprecedented times. I can concede on one level, as the article suggests, that every period in history is an utterly unique time. In a sense, that is true. This exact set of circumstances, surrounding this exact set of people, has never happened before. But, in an altogether different sense, there really is nothing unique about our times at all.
I am always surprised by the number of Christians who seem to think that this or that politicians, or political position, means that Christian people now face some unprecedented challenge. And, as someone who holds a degree in politics, I know what it can be like to so focus on that area of life and study that it can seem, in the moment, very little else matters quite so much. But perhaps it is also the fact that I hold history, religious studies and theology degrees too that I have come to see how easily we over-focus on the political present and lose perspective.
The truth is, very rarely is any moment properly unprecedented. Believers have faced challenges to their Christianity, and found times of both ease and severe discomfort, ever since they were called Christians. Those who think the COVID-19 pandemic is an unprecedented time in history seem to forget more recent history of the SARS and MERS in East Asia, the Spanish Flu epidemic and smallpox all coming about within the last few hundred years. The plague ran rampant in Europe before all of them. Pandemics and Epidemics are, in one sense, nothing new.
And the church having to navigate civic life and non-believing governments is an issue as old as the church itself.
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R.C. Sproul writes, “The covenant of grace, rather than annihilating the covenant of works, makes provision for someone else to fulfill the covenant of works for us…We are still justified by works—the works of Jesus, not our own.”

Previously, we saw the importance of understanding a covenant as an agreement in Scripture, and that the Covenant of Works existed with Adam before the Fall with the promise of life for obedience (which we qualified typologically as temporal, not eternal—earthy, not heavenly). All these details were to fully appreciate God’s plan for Jesus Christ to fulfill the Covenant of Works as eternal God and earn Christians eternal life. Now the Confession transitions into the Covenant of Grace stressing that the only possibility for anyone’s everlasting security is Solus Christus (in Christ Alone).
WCF 7.3:  Man by his fall having made himself incapable of life by that covenant, the Lord was pleased to make a second,(e) commonly called the covenant of grace; wherein He freely offereth unto sinners life and salvation by Jesus Christ, requiring of them faith in Him that they may be saved,(f) and promising to give unto all those that are ordained unto life His Holy Spirit, to make them willing and able to believe.(g)[1]
After the Fall, the Covenant of Works is still binding on all Adam’s posterity, but it only condemns. Adam became “incapable of [maintaining] life.” E. Clark Copeland explains, “… that the covenant of grace brings to consummation the covenant of life and confirms its principle of perfect obedience to the Lord God is confirmed through the Scripture in the command to be perfect as He is perfect, and in man’s accountability at the judgment …”[2] The Covenant of Grace is gracious in terms of what it bestows to us, but it is a reward for perfect obedience in relation to Jesus Christ on our behalf.
Still, the Confession teaches that this salvation does have a condition: the requirement of faith (see WLC 32).[3] Without faith, it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6), and thus to be saved. Copeland writes, “The gospel offer is made in covenant terms.”[4] Wayne Spear instructs, “In one sense, then, the Covenant of Grace may be said to be conditional. Its command is to believe, and the promised salvation is given only to those who believe … those whom God has chosen from eternity are enabled to fulfill the condition of the Covenant of Grace.”[5] Indeed, faith is a gift (Ephesians 2:8-9). God ordains our salvation, and He meets His condition by making us “willing and able to believe”—so it is all His sovereign grace.[6]   Still, as Watson emphasizes, “Faith is the condition of the covenant of grace; without faith, without covenant; and without covenant, without hope.”[7]
Some add a distinction of the “Covenant of Redemption” as the Trinity’s eternal commitment to the Covenant of Grace for the redeemed realized in time.  However, A.A. Hodge instructs that our standards
“…say nothing of two covenants…but assume that there is but one covenant contracted by Christ in behalf of the elect with God in eternity, and administered by him to the elect in the offers and ordinances of the gospel and in the gracious influences of his Spirit…The Confession of Faith in these sections teaches how that same covenant is administered by Christ to his people.”[8]
So the Westminster Larger Catechism Q&A 31 reads, “The covenant of grace was made with Christ as the second Adam, and in him with all the elect as his seed.”[9]
WCF 7.4: This covenant of grace is frequently set forth in Scripture by the name of a Testament, in reference to the death of Jesus Christ the Testator, and to the everlasting inheritance, with all things belonging to it, therein bequeathed.(h)[10]
The Greek word for “testament” is usually translated as “covenant” in Scripture, but it is appropriately rendered by the Confession here reflecting Hebrews 9:15 with Christ passing on our inheritance to us through His “last will and testament” enacted by the cross.[11] O. Palmer Robertson points out that “the theme of Hebrews 9:15ff is covenant inauguration,”[12] and explains that the idea of “testament” here relates to Christ agreeing to take on the death penalty of the Covenant of Works and so put it and its curse to death, thus bequeathing us His righteous life in the Covenant of Grace (see Rev. 21:7).
WCF 7.5: This covenant was differently administered in the time of the law, and in the time of the gospel:(i) under the law, it was administered by promises, prophecies, sacrifices, circumcision, the paschal lamb, and other types and ordinances delivered to the people of the Jews, all fore-signifying Christ to come:(k) which were, for that time, sufficient and efficacious, through the operation of the Spirit, to instruct and build up the elect in faith in the promised Messiah,(l) by whom they had full remission of sins, and eternal salvation; and is called, the Old Testament.(m)[13]
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