An idol is something that we look to for things that only God can give. Idolatry functions widely inside religious communities when doctrinal truth is elevated to the position of a false god. This occurs when people rely on the rightness of their doctrine for their standing with God rather than on God himself and his grace. It is a subtly but deadly mistake. The sign that you have slipped into this form of self-justification is that you become what the book of Proverbs calls a 'scoffer'.

It takes pride to be anxious – I am not wise enough to know how my life should go.

Most people in the world believe that if there is a God, you relate to God by being good. Most religions are based on that principle, though there are a million different variations on it...But they all have the same logic: If I perform, if I obey, I’m accepted. The gospel of Jesus is not only different from that but diametrically opposed to it: I’m fully accepted in Jesus Christ, and therefore I obey.

The Christian faith gives us a new conception of work as the means by which God loves and cares for his world through us.

Friends become wiser together through a healthy clash of viewpoints.

The future is already won, and the more hostile the culture, the easier it is to communicate the difference of Christianity.

Jesus warns people far more often about greed than about sex, yet almost no one thinks they are guilty of it.