My job as a pastor and theologian is to tease out the nature and the necessity of the gospel in meticulous ways, in everything I say, in everything I like. I want desperately for the church in America to rediscover the power and the beauty and the nature and the necessity of the gospel.

I think there is tribalism is a big deal inside of the church, that the church thinks of themselves as a tribe and not a mission.

The law is God's first word; the gospel is God's final word.

When you don't know where you fit inside the home and you're young and you're desperate to fit in somewhere, I'd figured where I would fit outside the home. So I made some obviously bad decisions about who I hung out with and the things that I did.

Explanations are a substitute for trust.

Only when you realize that the gospel has nothing to do with your obedience but with Christ's obedience for you, will you start to obey. The only Christians who end up getting better are those who realize that if they don't get better, God will love them anyway.

The emphasis of the Bible is on the work of the Redeemer, not on the work of the redeemed.