john on Persuasion

A wealthy Dutch collector was searching for a rare diamond to complete his collection. When a renowned New York dealer located the perfect stone, he invited the man to come see it in person. The Du...

God saves by persuasion, not compulsion, for compulsion is no attribute of God.

When we observe evil, sinful behavior from a distance, the inclination is simply to see people as acting with malicious intent. We assume they are “bad people.” But often the motivations that lead to ...

Arguments are ineffectual unless supported by events.

You cannot reason someone out of something he or she was not reasoned into.

In one fascinating study some years ago, subjects were presented with evidence suggesting that there was a correlation between heavy caffeine use and breast cancer. Subjects were then asked to report ...

You ought to.” “You need to.” “You’ve got to.” “You’re supposed to.” “You better.” Do these sorts of exhortations sound familiar? Perhaps you have heard admonitions such as these from the pulpit, from...

It is always crucial to remember that our beliefs are formed not only through reason and argument but also through social conditioning.

I am persuaded that love and humility are the highest attainments in the school of Christ and the brightest evidences that He is indeed our Master.

It’s important, then, to have our eyes open to this deception. How is it that so many modern promises sound true but in the end lead to our deception, or even our destruction? A long, long time ago, t...

Every time we say we believe in the Holy Spirit, we mean we believe that there is a living God able and willing to enter human personality and change it.

A book can teach you, a conversation can assure you, a poem can seduce you, a genius can inspire you, but only you can save yourself.

A number of you may be aware of Jerry Bridges’ series of books on holiness, and the book that maybe put him on the map was Pursuit of Holiness . Jerry’s a friend, so he’s told me these stories, and I...

At a recent gathering of seminary professors, one teacher reported that at his school the most damaging charge one student can lodge against another is that the person is being “judgmental.” He found ...

One of my favorite sayings is, no matter how difficult it is to hear, “Reality is always your friend.”

In her book, The Next Right Thing, Emily Freeman describes the difficulty in making decisions, including the decision that would eventually lead to her enrollment in Graduate school. After a prolonged...

To hold to a doctrine or an opinion with the intellect alone is not to believe it. A man’s real belief is that which he lives by.

There was a Girl Scout who had sold thousands of boxes of Girl Scout cookies and began to get publicity for all those boxes sold. Someone asked her, “How were you able to be so successful selling so m...

The Spirit of truth has been given to a people who lacked truth. The Advocate has been sent. We who were once without life have been given new life. For it is by grace we have been saved through faith...

Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes.

The indwelling Spirit shall teach him what is of God and what is not. This is why sometimes we can conjure up no logical reason for opposing a certain teaching, yet in the very depth of our being aris...

Jesus is understood in the light of the assumptions which control our culture.  When “reason” is invoked as a parallel or supplementary authority to “Scripture” and “tradition,” what is happening is t...

When I was growing up, my dad was a farmer, not a Christian. He had little interest in faith, having been told by his father that the Bible was a fairy tale. But then a local pastor took an interest i...

My mind is bent to tell of bodies changed into new forms.

We cannot will ourselves to accept grace. There are no magic words, preset formulas, or esoteric rites of passage. Only Jesus Christ sets us free from indecision. The Scriptures offer no other basis f...

Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? The Books of the Psalms and David The Book of Psalms is divided into five books, like the five books of the Torah. While it is not obvi...

God as the Thanksgiving Hub Given how pervasive the theme of gratitude is in Scripture—and how my wife and I try to condition our children always to say “thank you” to anyone who shows them even the ...

Creeds must disagree: it is the whole fun of the thing. If I think the universe is triangular, and you think it is square, there cannot be room for two universes. We may argue politely, we may argue h...

The most insidious deception in human history is the lie that says, “God is against you.”

Nothing illustrates evangelicals’ infatuation with politics more clearly than a story related by a Christian lawyer. Considering whether to take a job in the nation’s capital, he consulted with the le...