Originally published August 22, 2017
“Atonement” is a theological word that gets mentioned. In short, atonement refers to the work that Christ has done for those who have faith in Him to earn their salvation.
I think people sometimes approach the gospel with skepticism. Jesus died for the sins of all who believe in him.
I know I used to ask was “why do we need this? Why do we have to believe in Jesus? Is sin such a big deal? Why is he the only way?” (more…)
Or are you never happy because it’s never enough, never close enough to what you want? Never what you think you need?
Or else, we’ll be like the Israelites. Continually seeing the blessings of God and never enjoying any of it because we always have something else to look at to worry about.
Josh Benner is the associate pastor at Cornerstone Evangelical Free Church in Fergus Falls, Minnesota and has a Master of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He enjoys writing about faith and culture. He lives with his wife Kari in Minnesota.
I’m a huge fan of Dr. Gary Chapman’s book The Five Love Languages. Dr. Chapman is a pastor and marriage counselor, and his love languages is a theory that everyone primarily receives love in one of five ways.
The love languages are:
Quality time
Physical touch
Words of affirmation
Acts of service
Gifts
All of the love languages boil down to time. Acts of services takes time to serve someone. Gifts requires time to notice the types of gifts that will be appropriately thoughtful, and they take time to acquire and to earn the money to pay for. Physical touch takes presence, which takes time. For words of affirmation to have meaning and sincerity, that requires really knowing someone which takes time. Quality time is not merely being around each other but also meaningful and significant time together.
The love languages are just different ways to utilize tie to invest and build up a relationship. I think it’s important for a person to know their own love language, and also to know the love languages of their spouse and children because there is value in showing love to a person in the way that a person best receives love.
Josh Benner is the associate pastor at Cornerstone Evangelical Free Church in Fergus Falls, Minnesota and has a Master of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He enjoys writing about faith and culture. He lives with his wife Kari in Minnesota.
I was going through Lee Strobel’s latest book The Case for Miracles last week. The final chapter in the book was a poignant discussion entitled: “When miracles don’t happen.”
In that chapter, Strobel interviews Douglas Groothuis who’s a professor at Denver Seminary. In the interview, they talk about the health of Groothuis’s wife Becky, a Mensa member and author who developed a rare form of dementia which impacts the brain’s ability to recall words.
In the interview, they talk of day to day challenges of seeing his wife taken from him. The interview talked about faith, spirituality, lament, and hope.
I was particularly struck by one of the answers Groothuis gave. Strobel asked “Do you feel like if you were God, you would definitely heal Becky?”
“God is perfect and he acts accordingly. If I were God, I’d be perfect – and therefore I’d act in the very same way he does. We might not understand why he does what he does, but it’s folly to think we’d do things better.”
I found that to be brilliant and insightful. It’s easy for us to look to things in God’s rule of creation and to think it could be done better or should be done differently. But God is righteous and eternal. At times, it can be very hard to see the good in the struggles of our lives. At times, it’s hard to see the goodness of God in the wrongs others afflict on us.
Groothuis saw a brilliant woman lose her mental faculties and pass away at just 59 years of age. But the faith to trust that God is still good in that. To trust that God is so good that his plan cannot be improved upon in spite of all of the bad, all of the evil, all of the suffering in our world. God still works that for good. God still weaves that into his plans and uses it for his own glory.
Josh Benner is the associate pastor at Cornerstone Evangelical Free Church in Fergus Falls, Minnesota and has a Master of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He enjoys writing about faith and culture. He lives with his wife Kari in Minnesota.
Originally published: November 14, 2016
Hell is a tough doctrine.
In his book the Problem of Pain, CS Lewis sums up what I think many would agree with: “There is no doctrine which I would more willingly remove from Christianity than this, if it lay in my power. But it has the full support of Scripture and, specially, of our Lord’s own words; it has always been held by Christendom; and it has the support of reason.”
We’re fine with the idea of a loving God, but we’re less accepting of a God who judges.
With the idea of hell, It can seem unfair. We can feel tempted to justify why hell doesn’t exist. Or maybe we think that hell is really just for people who are really, really bad. (more…)
