PRACTICAL THEOLOGY

Bible Reading

• Teach the Bible Through in a Year: Tips and Tools (December 2010)

• Seven Habits to Becoming a Highly Effective Bible Reader (December 2011)

• Don’t Waste Your Summer: Read the Bible (May 2012)

• Feeding on the Bible in 2016: An Approach to Bible Reading for Those Who Don’t (December 2015)

• With Assurance and Affection: A Primer on How to Read Scripture (December 2015)

 

Blogging

• Via Emmaus (May 2008)

• Why Blog? (May 2008)

• Why Blog? (Part 2) (May 2008)

• Why Blog? (3): Blogging as the Modern Day Aeropagus (May 2008)

• Why Blog? (4): So Sparks May Fly (May 2008)

• Why Blog? (5) For the Joy of Telling the Truth (May 2008)

 

Church Health

Most of these are the applications I gave our church when we read through What is a Healthy Church Member by Thabiti Anyabwile.

1. Expositional Listening: The First Mark of a Healthy Church Member (September 2009)

2. Biblical Theology: The Second Mark of a Healthy Church Member (September 2009)

3. Gospel Saturation: The Third Mark of a Healthy Church Member (October 2009)

4. A Genuine Convert: The Fourth Mark of a Healthy Church Member (October 2009)

5. A Biblical Evangelist: The Fifth Mark of a Healthy Church Member (October 2009)

6. Committed Church Membership: The Sixth Mark of a Healthy Church Member (October 2009)

7. Who Seeks Discipline? The Seventh Mark of a Healthy Church Member (November 2009)

8. A Growing Disciple: The Eighth Mark of a Healthy Church Member (November 2009)

 

Discipleship

Five Questions on Discipleship (January 2012):

1. What Did Jesus Do?

2. What Is a Disciple?

3. Who Makes Disciples?

4. How Do You Make Disciples?

5. Why Should You Make Disciples?

 

Areas of Discipleship

• Peace-making — Five Things You Need to Know to Battle Conflict (September 2013); Blessed are the Merciful: Giving, Forgiving, and Thanksgiving (March 2014);  Nine Traits of a Peacemaker (April 2014)

• Thanksgiving — Lord’s Day Meditation: A Song of Thanksgiving (November 2013)

 

Discipleship 101

• Discipleship 101: What is a Disciple?

 

Evangelism

• Hospitality Evangelism (July 2013)

• The Key to Twenty-First Century Evangelism (July 2013)

• Hospitality, Fellowship, and Evangelism (July 2013)

• Evangelism Then and Now: The Same Seed, A Different Soil (October 2013)

• What Does Revival Look Like? (November 2014)

• What is Jesus’s Evangelism Program? (November 2014)

• Patient Love and Compassionate Truth: Keys to Reaching the Unreachable (November 2014)

• Eleven Questions to Facilitate Hospitality Evangelism (June 2015)

• The Doctrine of Creation: A Necessary Part of Our Worship and Evangelism (June 2015)

 

Idolatry

• March Madness

 

Leadership and Theological Education

• Acts 20:24-27: Biblical Leadership (pt. 1) (August 2008)

• Acts 20:24-27: Biblical Leadership (pt. 2) (August 2008)

• John Flavel on Decision-Making (June 2011)

• Don’t Despise the ‘Plain Things’ of Life: What the Lord Uses to Prepare His Ministers (June 2010)

• If Dietrich Bonhoeffer Were Your ‘Doktorvater,’ or, Seven Qualifications for Ministerial Students (July 2015)

• Indianapolis Theological Seminary at Together for the Gospel (April 2016)

• The Making of a ‘Theologian’: Twelve Ways to Grow in Grace and Knowledge of the Lord (April 2016)

 

Manhood

• A Man’s Spiritual Toolbox (October 2010)

• Gone in Sixty Seconds (June 2013)

• Hustle, Charlie Hustle! (March 2014)

• Keeping In Step with the Spirit by Following in the Footsteps of J.R.R. Tolkien (March 2014)

 

Elders

• What does the New Testament say about elders? (September 2014)

• Seven Things to Know About Elders (September 2014)

• Establish Elders for the Sake of Evangelism (September 2014)

• What is an Elder Supposed to Do? (September 2014)

 

Men’s and Women’s Roles

• Putting the Bible into Practice: Women in the Workplace (May 2011)

• Susanna Wesley: Mother’s Lessons Key in Founding the Church  (June 2011)

• What is Evangelical Feminism? And Where Did It Come From? (November 2014)

 

Music and Worship

• Matt Papa’s Prophetic Take on Christian Radio

• Above All, Who Did Christ Die For? (May 2015)

• Reconsidering “Above All”: How Hermeneutics Must Intersect with and Inform Our Hymnody (May 2015)

• Spirit-Filled Worship is Christ-Centered Worship (July 2015)

• Trading in Our Patriotic Hymns for Songs of Lament (July 2015)

 

Missions

• Lottie Moon: Her Upbringing and Education; Her Conversion and Call to China; Sovereign Suffering and Sanctification; Lessons From Lottie (December 2011)

• Five Lessons from an Unlikely Missionary (February 2014)

• For His Name’s Sake: Why the Church Must Do More Than Local Evangelism (January 2016)

• Enlarging Our Missions Footprint (April 2016)

 

Marriage and Sexuality 

• Gender Specificity and the Gospel of Jesus Christ (CBMW, February 2013)

• Sex Tells the Gospel (July 2008); Updated: Telling the Story (Pure Hope, February 2012)

• The Mystery of Marriage: A Quasi-Ordinance (November 2011)

• Marriage, Gender Roles, and the Great Commission (Part 1) (July 2008)

• Marriage, Gender Roles, and the Great Commission (Part 2) (July 2008)

• Marriage: A Theological Helpmate (August 2008)

• Marriage: A Heavenly Sculpture Formed From Earthly Clay (August 2008)

• Vaughan Roberts on Marriage (August 2008)

• Vaughn Roberts on Marriage: The Goal and Glory of Marriage (August 2008)

• Otto Piper on Marriage (August 2008)

• Two Weddings and a Funeral :: Two Funerals and a Wedding (July 2010)

• A Letter to My Church: A Sexual Manifesto on Biblical Holiness (September 2013)

• Joy and Pleasure: A Series of Contrasts (October 2013)

• Thoughts on Sex (November 2013)

• Resources on Marriage (November 2013)

• It’s About Scriptural Authority, not Sexual Liberty (April 2014)

• A Gospel-Centered Approach to Divorce (October 2014)

• What Does the Bible Say About Divorce? (October 2014)

• What Makes a Divorce ‘Biblical’?  (October 2014)

• Thinking Biblically About Transgenderism (May 2015)

• Purging Pornography with the Power of a Greater Pleasure (January 2016)

 

Money

• Bulls, Birds, and Bugs: Financial Aid from the Forest and the Field (October 2008)

• The Gospel of Jesus Christ: A Better Investment Than Gold (December 2010)

• Gospel-Motivated Generosity is a Mark of True Obedience (December 2011)

 

Parenting

• What do you want for your children? (August 2010)

• How Sheep Can Shepherd Their Shepherd’s Lambs (March 2014)

 

Prayer

• The Sweet-Smelling Aroma of Prayer (OT) (October 2011)

• The Sweet-Smelling Aroma of Prayer (NT) (October 2011)

• The Power of Prayer (March 2014)

• Take Up and Pray: Learning to Pray the Scriptures from Donald Whitney (June 2015)

• Ten Books on Prayer (November 2015)

 

Preaching

• Was Martyn Lloyd-Jones a Biblical Theologian? (June 2008)

• From Sinai to Chile to Zion: Why Visual Aids Do and Do Not Help Us See Christ in the Bible (July 2009)

• Who is Upholding Who?: Preaching in the Face of Adversity (January 2012)

• The Need for Expositional Preaching (pt. 1) (April 2014)

• The Need for Expositional Preaching (pt. 2): A Biblical Defense (April 2014)

• The Need for Expositional Preaching (pt. 3): Jesus was an Expositor (May 2014)

• The Need for Expositional Preaching (pt. 4): Apostolic Preaching is Expositional (May 2014)

• Five Ways Preaching Improves Your Theology (April 2014)

• Preaching Larger Sections of Scripture (June 2014)

• Be Careful, Little Flock, How You Hear (December 2014)

• Four Reasons You Should Read and Preach the Old Testament (May 2015)

• Martyn Lloyd-Jones on Preaching and Preachers, Revival and Religion (July 2015)

• Expositional Preaching is ‘Empowered Preaching’ (July 2015)

 

Prosperity Gospel

• Whose ‘Blessed’? Five Reflections from the Psalms (January 2014)

• The Prosperity Gospel: The New 9Marks Journal (January 2014)

• That’s the Prosperity Gospel (January 2014)

• Six Keys to Detecting the Prosperity Gospel (March 2014)

• Rescuing Jabez from the Soft Prosperity Gospel (April 2015)

• Productivity

• Does God Require (Increased) Productivity? (June 2014)

• ‘Do Not Work For That Which Is Not Bread’: A Biblical Theology of Work (November 2014)

 

Public Theology

Politics According to the Bible (October 2010)
Reflections on Wayne Grudem’s Book

• (1): Five Wrong Views

• (2): Significant Christian Influence

• (3): Biblical Principles

• (4): A Biblical Worldview

• (5): The Courts

• William Wilberforce: A Factory of Good Works (October 2010)

• How Should Christians Engage Culture? (October 2014)

• A Call for *Public* Spiritual Disciplines (January 2016)

• The Bible in American Public Life: Two Lessons from Mark Noll’s New Book (January 2016)

 

Reading

• Twelve ‘Old Books’ Every Christian Should Read (July 2014);  My Twelfth ‘Old Book’ (July 2014)

 

Spiritual Gifts and Service

• Corn Creek Baptist Church and the Spiritual Gift of Listening (May 2008)

• Spirit-Empowered Service is a Mark of True Obedience (December 2011)

• The Sweetness and Sacredness of Sundays (March 2012)

• Service That Pleases the Lord (June 2012)

• Do Not Underestimate Your Ministry of Presence (October 2014)

• From Performing in the Flesh to Panting for the Spirit (April 2015)

• How Jesus’ Poverty Enriches Us to Give Sacrificially (2 Corinthians 8:9) (2 Corinthians 8:9)

• Playing (and Not Playing) Sports to the Glory of God (February 2016)

 

Spiritual Fruits

• Walk in the Way of Wisdom: Be Slow to Anger (James 1:19-21)

• If You Want to Reap Joy, Plan for Peace (Proverbs 12:20; Ps 16:11)

• From Zoloft to Zion: Why Your Sadness Might Be Your Salvation (Jer 14:2; Isa 57:15; Ps 34:18)

 

Suffering

• How Do You Comfort a Family Whose Lost an Infant? Spurgeon on Infant Salvation (June 2008)

• A Message of Hope in the Aftermath of the Storm (March 2012)

• Finding An Anchor in the Storm (September 2013)

• Suffering: Playing Your Part With Passion (October 2013)

• Good News for Bleeding Hearts and Broken Bones (March 2014)

• Pastors, Teach Your People About Suffering (April 2014)

• Where Do Infants Go When They Die? (September 2014)

• The God of Comfort Who Grants Tailor-Made Mercy (April 2016)

 

Testimonies

• Alexander Cruden: The Good Insane Concordance Maker (August 2008)

• Skip Bayless Goes Biblical on ESPN (January 2012)

• Jeremy Lin’s Faith: Keeping Our Heads in the Midst of Linsanity (January 2012)

• ‘Let Them Come Home’–Abraham Piper’s Wise Counsel to Grieving Parents (March 2013)

• Luke Short’s Long Life (February 2014)

• The Gospel on the Ground (April 2014)

• Marveling at God’s Direction in Our Lives: An Update on the Schrocks (August 2015)

 

Worldview

• The Craft of Research: An Unwitting Exposition of the Cultural Mandate (January 2009)

• How Did We Get Here? A Basic Outline on Western Thought (October 2013)

• It’s About Scriptural Authority, not Sexual Liberty (April 2014)