Here are the top 10 articles you read, clicked, and shared in 2024.
Sinners need a Savior from sin, not a sentimental gospel that strokes their ego. Jesus left heaven for earth to exhaust God’s wrath—something the sentimental gospel cannot account for. Only a sin-bearing substitute, who bears God’s hell and drains His anger, can grant us that hope. That is why Jesus came—to save us, who were lost.
The Father would credit sin to His Son’s account and crush Him for it (Isaiah 53:10). Why? Because imputed sin and holy judgment is what it took for a righteous God to reconcile sinners to Himself (2 Corinthians 5:21). Nothing less would do.
In the treasured verses of Psalm 23, we discover the care with which our Chief Shepherd guides us and find instruction to guide our flocks. God Himself is our Shepherd, even as we shepherd others.
The Lord has blessed me with the opportunity to attend seminary twice. During that process, I made more than a few mistakes and observed the mistakes of others. I’ve decided to detail a few of the more common blunders here with the hope that they will serve as a warning sign for current and future seminarians.
Though studying the Old Testament may be tedious and time-consuming, it is filled with many rewards. Both the pursuit of its understanding and the process required to achieve it abound with treasures along the way. And, while these rewards may be the thing that fuels the desire for such study, there are other very important reasons that should drive us to be students of the Old Testament.
“His Robes for Mine” is one of my favorite modern hymns. It uses the biblical imagery of exchanging robes to illustrate imputation and substitution (Zechariah 3:1–5). It magnifies the active and passive obedience of Christ. It even uses the word propitiation—no small feat for a song written in 2008!
Yet, for all of its obvious strengths, the chorus of the song has one line that gave me pause the first time I heard it: "I cling to Christ, and marvel at the cost: Jesus forsaken, God estranged from God."
Good reading shapes the mind. It forms the soul and establishes a way of being in the world. To read well means we resist the spirit of the age—books are not tweets. They ask us to think, consider, and respond. If an author’s argument is worth retaining, we should retain it.
History commends to us the florilegium: a choice gathering of rich ideas that follow us around. If we keep bringing the beautiful words before us—reading, thinking, florilegium—they begin to have their way with us. Through them we become something new.
The Word of the Lord is clear in Isaiah 66:2: God looks with favor to the one who is humble and contrite. The world may devalue those who live in humility, but the Lord looks upon them with approval (1 Peter 5:5).
Humility does not come naturally to us. It is a response that must be cultivated in our hearts as we meditate on the chasm between who we think we are and who God is revealed to be. If God looks with favor upon the one who trembles at His Word, we must prioritize the cultivation of humility in our hearts.
Take a look back at the top 10 most-played sermons from Shepherds Conference 2023.
Look back at sermon notes from each Shepherds Conference 2024 general session.