RIGHT NOW

Here's a short and powerful illustration of the difference between proclaiming a "truncated gospel" (of "You're a sinner but Jesus died for you so that you can go to heaven when you die if you just trust in Him") and proclaiming the more robust biblical gospel of the Kingdom. 

It's a paraphrase of something YouTuber Kevin Thompson said in one of his videos:

I used to evangelize by asking people, "Do you know where you are going when you die?" Now I want to ask people, "Do you know where you are going IN THIS LIFE right now?" 

I AM BLESSED

Today was a good day. Sunday, February 1st, 2026. 

The drive to church was absolutely magical this morning. An early morning frost had frozen on all the trees and across the stubble in the fields, poking out from under the 14 inches of snow that fell last weekend. 

My good friend from seminary days, Tim Price, and his wife Suzanne and their daughter Macy had come to provide music for the morning, but now all of that was in jeopardy due to a malfunctioning church furnace - on a morning when the outside temps were in the negatives. 

A couple of our trustees tried to get the furnace up and running, but by the time they worked their miracle, there wasn't enough time to warm up the sanctuary by 10:30. Tim and I decided we'd go ahead and do a live stream on Facebook.

And then church members showed up anyway. Everyone kept their coats on. Some brought blankets. It was a fun morning. 

Tim and Macy did a beautiful job leading worship and people were genuinely appreciative of their gifts. 

This evening I drove back out to church, and the landscape was again magical, now bathed in the peculiar slant of light of a winter sunset. 

The church was still cold, but the youth met together for dinner and a lesson on the Lord's Prayer. They are a lovable group of goofballs. 

At the end of our meeting, our youth leader, Pam, asked the kids to surround me and pray for my trip to Ghana this week. 

It was a beautiful moment. 

A beautiful day.

SIMPLIFY

Typically, I keep my online "mouth" closed when it comes to political events. 

When it comes to the latest outrage, I am just not as certain as a lot of people are that I know the full and obvious truth or that I have THE proper interpretation. 

Nor am I convinced that the world is dying to know where I stand. 

And, thankfully, I personally long ago gave up the immature notion that if your beliefs don't align with mine, then you are a terrible person and probably not even a true Christian. 

I am nervous that the current river of rage, hatred, mockery, hyperbolic rhetoric, and self-righteousness is carrying us all into dangerous territory. 

It is disappointing to see so much of this being furthered by individuals I otherwise respect. 

I understand. We are emotional beings. But now would be a good time for everyone to count to ten and then practice some critical thinking skills. 

I doubt James Clear was thinking about politics and social media when he wrote the following, but it does apply:

"To simplify before you understand the details is ignorance. To simplify after you understand the details is genius."

The current level of ignorance is scary. 

JUST A TICKET TO HEAVEN?

Free Grace Theology - with it's "Believe these propositional truths about Jesus and you are irrevocably in the Eternal Life Club, no genuine righteousness required" - ends up with this big question:

Why does God arrange this particular system for entry into heaven? 

The Free Grace folks highlight this arrangement as bringing glory to Jesus - "He paid the price for you. It was ALL Him. Your righteousness or lack of righteousness had nothing to do with it. All you have to do is believe. And because He is faithful, once you believe, the Father will honor this arrangement, no questions asked."

So through all of human history, the Lord repeatedly offers humanity guidance toward righteousness, asks for righteousness, blesses obedience and punishes unrighteousness. But in the end, He really doesn't care that much about human righteousness because the really important thing is that His Son gets glory for sticking to His word?

Sounds a little like God just gave up on human righteousness, instead of making a way to enable it.

But I think what bothers me most about Free Grace Theology is its focus on justification - defined as simply the ticket into heaven.

There's no sense of humanity being reconciled to the Creator. (Which is really what justification is all about.) Rather, it's just "do this one simple thing and I will let you into heaven". 

It's a great example of what Matthew Bates calls "the truncated gospel": "You are a sinner destined for hell but Jesus died for you so that you can go to heaven when you die so just believe in Him." 

Which falls SO FAR SHORT of this vision, for example, from the mouth of Jesus Himself: "Now this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent." (John 17:3)

NEW TRADITIONS CAN BE WORSE THAN OLD ONES

As I look into "Free Grace Theology", I am not familiar enough with its history and core doctrines to distinguish between teachers who are pillars and those who are outliers. 

So I could be wrong, but this is what I am seeing as core doctrines from a couple of different teachers:

• Stress on justification by faith alone - to the extent that repentance is not necessary (or is considered just another word for "faith"). 

• Justification and sanctification are strictly separated. Justification is what secures your place in heaven. It happens in an instant when you feel confidence in Christ's death for your salvation. 

• Sanctification involves good works, certainly, and it is the preferrable path for disciples, but it is not at all necessary for salvation. Believers who take sanctification seriously in this lifetime will simply win greater rewards in heaven.

• Once saved, always saved. Justification, once granted, is irrevocable.   Believers can have confidence their place in heaven has been secured even if they live a morally corrupt life after their initial moment of faith. 

This is a mess and there's so much to unpack here. 

So here's one good rule of thumb to avoid getting enmeshed in a misguided theological tradition in the first place: If you are tempted to hitch your horse to any particular theological movement, make sure its roots go back MUCH further than 20th century America. 

TRADITION CAN CLOUD WHAT IS OTHERWISE CLEAR

I love the concept of the perspicuity of Scripture.

If you're not familiar with the term, "perspicuity" is the ironically complicated word which the scholars have chosen instead of "clarity".

So the idea is that Scripture, though layered, nuanced, and sophisticated in structure, is accessible and understandable to the average reader. Although the meanings of some passages have been obscured by differences in culture and time, everything that a person needs to understand God's plan of salvation is plain enough to the reader.

I do believe Scripture is generally clear ... and yet I also believe the average believer has a weak grasp of the basics. 

Why?

Scripture can be complex and dense, but lately I have begun to wonder if the real culprit keeping Americans from understanding the gospel on a deeper level is Tradition. 

In particular, I mean the traditions surrounding all the various theological arguments that quietly rage over centuries. 

Most Christians aren't even aware of the points of contention - we only know the viewpoint of whatever tradition we grew up with.

The Bible preachers and teachers we listen to rarely reveal their biases up front. Half the time, they probably aren't aware of their own biases. They are just parroting what they learned in their home church and their seminary. 

Up until recently, I wasn't familiar with "Free Grace Theology" and now I realize a pastoral colleague has bought into it full force. He's recommending books and podcasts and I'm trying to research Free Grace and discern what makes it unique. 

(If you're not familiar, Free Grace emphasizes "faith alone" for the justification of the sinner - good works play no part. And once justified, a person usually goes on to grow in obedience to God, but doesn't necessarily have to. The justification is irrevocable. Proponents on the "hyper" fringe of Free Grace would maintain that a man who put his trust in Jesus as a child could die a drunken, drug-addicted child pornographer 50 years later ... and still gain access to heaven.) 

Now that I've gotten experience researching some of these theological arguments - Calvinism vs. Arminianism, Eternal Conscious Torment vs. Conditional Immortality, Divine Foreknowledge vs. Molinism vs. Open Theism, and Penal Substitutionary Atonement vs. every other atonement theory - if I want to understand, I kind of know at least where to start:

The proof texts. What verses are employed to prove the validity of their doctrinal pillars? 

(And ... how far have they been removed from their contexts?)

I have learned that some theological viewpoints are held up by bamboo.

And yet defended ferociously with butter knives. 

I'm trying to keep an open mind regarding Free Grace Theology, but so far it doesn't look particularly solid to me. 

Sorting through doctrinal traditions is fascinating, but also exhausting and confusing.

Not exactly perspicuous! 

WHEN THE CHECK IS JUST THE CHERRY ON TOP

Did you see footage online of a young man named Alex Honnold climbing up the outside of Taipei 101, a 1,667-foot skyscraper in Taiwan? (The 101 refers to the number of floors!) It took him a little over an hour and a half and he did the whole thing without any ropes or safety gear.

Netflix did a live broadcast of the climb - with a ten second delay, just in case Alex lost his grip along the way.

Why did Ales make the climb?

Well, Netflix paid him half a million dollars. 

But Alex says he didn't do it for the money. 

In fact, he would have done it for free. He did it because it was fun. It's what he was made for. 

We should take some inspiration from Alex when it comes to our understanding of faith.

Recently when I have said that "faith" in a biblical sense necessarily involves works, I have come to realize that some people think I'm espousing what's called "Lordship Salvation", a system where good works are REQUIRED for salvation.

"You're saying we have to earn our salvation through our own righteousness", I've been told. 

Honestly, that concept had not even crossed my mind. 

I'm not talking about doing God's will in order to gain His approval or avoid His judgment.

Or earn salvation. 

Remember Ephesians 2:10? "For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance as our way of life."

Our good works don't earn salvation. They ARE salvation. 

Salvation is being restored to what you were created for in the first place.

It may be challenging at times and scary at times but being in the center of God's will is the most fun place to be, hands down. 

It's a joyful thing in and of itself and I don't see how (or why) someone would want to separate it from "faith".