The Gospel Coalition

When my pastors approached me about teaching women’s Sunday school, I was intimidated. I love teaching the Bible, but the majority of women who attend the class are at least 40 years older than me—and 40 times godlier. What could I offer these women who’ve faithfully followed Jesus for longer than I’ve been alive? But my pastors and future coteacher were persistent. So I got a teacher’s guide and began preparing to teach the wise women of Grace Baptist Church. It turns out, teaching that class was one of the best things I could’ve done as a young adult.

When you think about your church’s culture, you can likely identify positive and negative aspects. There’s no perfect church. So you involve yourself in Christ’s body not because a church has it all together or has attained human perfection but because you are, in fact, “involved” in Christ’s body. Ephesians 2:19–22 (CSB) explains this about all believers: “You are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with the saints, and members of God’s household . . . being built together for God’s dwelling in the Spirit.” Christians are joined together for a holy purpose. We’re “one body in Christ, and individually members one of another” (Rom. 12:5). The question, then, is how imperfect people of all walks of life are joined together in Christ. And what does that mean for our assurance and our destiny?

I used to have a quote from G. K. Chesterton hanging on my bedroom wall: “Gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.” I wanted to remind myself to be grateful, but it really got me thinking about wonder. Wonder starts with humility and openness, which create space for ideas of amazement and revelation. Wonder is also inherent in Christianity. We know there’s more than we can know, and we’re prepared to be surprised by the invisible God whose thoughts are beyond our thoughts (Isa. 55:8–9). Christmas is filled with wonder as God takes on human flesh and works in mysterious ways to save us. As the holidays approach, I want to celebrate books that feature an aspect of wonder, an unexpected adventure or joy in surprising places or something astonishingly beautiful or brave or good we might look at every day but sometimes forget to see. Here are five wonderful new picture books to share with the children in your life.

Here’s my review of ‘Wicked’ for The Gospel Coalition. It’s a movie full of fun costumes, catchy songs, and good vibes—but fairly confusing, rather unhelpful ideas about morality.

Forgiveness is not the opposite of seeking true justice. It is, among many other things, its precondition. - Tim Keller

Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834–92) continues to be a colossal influence on gospel-centered ministry. Contemporaries recognized his significance, resulting in many biographies of him in the months and years following his death, not to mention those written during his lifetime. However, new developments, like the creation of the Spurgeon Center at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, have opened up new opportunities for exploring studies of Spurgeon’s legacy. In Spurgeon: A Life, Alex DiPrima provides an updated and accessible biography of the Prince of Preachers. Few of Spurgeon’s many biographies accurately portray his life or reflect the scholarly precision his legacy warrants. This new portrayal serves the church because it “makes some improvements over previous accounts of his life and also takes into view many of the new studies and new data now available to historians and researchers” (15–16). Beyond increasing appreciation of Spurgeon, this book aims to help readers develop “a deeper love for the glorious Savior who captivated Spurgeon’s heart and life.”

In her TGCW24 message, Ruth Chou Simons unpacks Jesus’s statement “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” from John 14:1–14. When we believe that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, we find comfort and hope, knowing that nothing in the world can shake this truth. Jesus’s claim is exclusive, and many will find it offensive. But the truth that no one can come to the Father except through Jesus is the greatest comfort for troubled hearts. Christ, the perfect offering, is the only One who could make a way to God for us. Watch the full episode below or listen in the TGC Podcast, available wherever you get your podcasts.

One of the most noteworthy theological trends in 21st-century pop culture has been the rehabilitation of the “villain.” From Cruella to Maleficent to the Joker and more, iconic villains are now routinely given spinoff movies and sympathetic backstories that complicate our categories of good and evil. This has dovetailed with the rise of the “trauma plot” and a narrative fixation on how destructive choices (let’s just call it “sin”) can be explained by past trauma. Part of why Hollywood has gravitated toward this narrative is simply that it makes good (and financially lucrative) drama. Giving villains origin stories is intriguing. But I think this trend’s rise is also connected to the post-Christian culture’s confusion about sin and evil, morality and justice. In this world, the theological word “sin” has been replaced by the psychological word “brokenness,” and transcendent concepts of justice have been replaced by oppressor-oppressed power dynamics. All this is on full display in Wicked (out today in theaters), the Jon M. Chu–directed movie about the Wicked Witch of the West’s origin story. The Wicked franchise (first a book, then a popular Stephen Schwartz Broadway musical, and now a two-part cinematic saga) is perhaps the clearest example yet that contemporary pop culture struggles with the category of evil. The title alone playfully probes the concept, redefining it as a word of empowerment (think “Wicked awesome!” as Bostonians might say). Rather than being the iconically despicable, nightmare-inducing character immortalized by Margaret Hamilton in 1939’s The Wizard of Oz, the Wicked Witch of the West is reconsidered in Wicked as a good-natured, well-intentioned outcast named Elphaba who has been seriously misunderstood.

In theological circles that stress the pervasiveness of sin, we’re often told we’re more sinful than we realize. We can’t comprehend the extent of sin’s effects: its parasitic attachment to whatever good we do, its potential to taint even the purest of motives, the way it fractures shalom in the tiniest of ways, the resistance of sin’s rebellious heart toward God, or the sly and insidious actions motivated by a quiet fear of people. “Out damned spot!” cried Lady Macbeth after all her futile efforts to get rid of the bloodstains from her complicity with murder. Even after we’re rescued by Christ—trusting him not only to save us but also to make us more like himself—our sense of our sinfulness grows. The closer we get to Jesus, the more we see and feel our lack of holiness, our stubborn sinful patterns, our spiritual inadequacies. As the extensiveness of their sin dawned on people around pastor Jack Miller, he’d do the opposite of the world that constantly chants “You are enough” and “You are good” by saying instead, “Cheer up! You’re a much bigger sinner than you think!” Yes, we’re far more sinful than we can comprehend, and we’re guilty even of sins we’re unaware of, the sins the psalmist asks forgiveness for, our “hidden faults” (Ps. 19:12–13) that require purification.

Back in May, Kennedy said in an interview that he opposes any government limits on abortion access. When asked if he supported keeping abortion legal for a full-term baby (i.e., near the delivery date), Kennedy affirmed that was the case. Later, he clarified his position: “Abortion should be legal up until a certain number of weeks.” Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America (SBA) responded at the time by saying his comments made him “unacceptable to millions of pro-life voters nationwide.” Yet now that Kennedy is nominated to head the HHS, SBA has been silent (as of the time of publication, SBA hasn’t posted a comment on their website). But SBA isn’t the only one. I reached out to SBA, Americans United for Life (AUL), Family Research Council (FRC), Live Action, National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), Students for Life, and the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC). Only one of those groups was willing to comment.