Spiritual Growth / Sanctification and Growth

  • The One-Two Punch by R.C. Sproul Jr.

    FROM TABLETALK | May 2010

    The one thing I want you to be certain to do is finish reading this column and brush your teeth every evening. I trust at least two things strike you about this opening sentence. First, it’s a rather odd …Read More

  • Set Apart to Die and to Live by Burk Parsons

    FROM TABLETALK | May 2010

    “When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer was about thirty years old when he penned these words in his classic work The Cost of Discipleship. Eight years later he was executed for his crimes …Read More

  • Meditating on Scripture by Bruce Waltke

    FROM TABLETALK | September 2009

      “Better than a bronze sculpture by Cellini, or a marble one by Bernini, or even a Beethoven symphony,” I was saying to my colleagues, while our waitress with tray in hand waited attentively for my climatic closure, “I enjoy a …Read More

  • No Ordinary Mercy by John Sartelle

    FROM TABLETALK | May 2010

    India’s caste system is huge and complicated. It has many divisions and subdivisions. The caste system divides the people into unbreakable groups divided by occupation, money, and position. In the 1930s, the British discovered a previously unknown caste. This …Read More

  • Feeling Good about Ourselves by Gene Edward Veith

    FROM TABLETALK | January 2007

    We tend to underestimate the magnitude of sin, in particular, our own sin. And our failure to confront our sinfulness in an honest way — our tendency rather to revel in how good we are — can have devastating consequences in …Read More

  • Thanks Be to God by Knox Chamblin

    FROM TABLETALK | March 2009

    In December 2008, I turned seventy-three. Invited by Tabletalk to address younger generations “on matters pertinent to the faith,” I thought of Psalm 71, the prayer of an elderly man. Says verse 18: “So even to old age and gray …Read More

  • Everlasting Promises by John Duncan

    FROM TABLETALK | December 2007

    On a recent morning talk show I saw a wedding ceremony, convened on a side street in downtown New York and televised live. There were myriad peculiarities contained within this ceremony, but I was struck in particular by the …Read More

  • A Matter of Life and Death by Burk Parsons

    FROM TABLETALK | January 2007

    The Christian marketplace is filled with T-shirts, tracts, and trinkets that speak of how to have the ideal Christian life. Every year, Christians spend millions of dollars on self-help books and “how-to” guides for living an abundant life. For …Read More

  • Basking in the Benefits by Kim Riddlebarger

    FROM TABLETALK | February 2009

    Q. What are the benefits which in this life do accompany or flow from justification, adoption, and sanctification?  A. The benefits which in this life do accompany or flow from justification, adoption, and sanctification, are, assurance of God’s love …Read More

  • Remembering God’s Grace by Chris Donato

    FROM TABLETALK | October 2007

    For many of us, at the beginning of our Christian journeys, we thought of and spoke often about the radical forgiveness of a God who has been greatly sinned against. I remember myself going on and on about God’s …Read More

  • The Pastor and His Pulpit by Albert Martin

    FROM TABLETALK | September 2007

    The life of a minister is the life of his ministry.” This adage is as true now as ever. In fact, ministerial integrity is an indispensable element of any sustained credibility among a discerning people with whom we have pastoral …Read More

  • Right Now Counts Forever by R.C. Sproul Jr.

    FROM TABLETALK | July 2010

    It was Augustine who argued that every sin is a failure to love ordinately. Sin is the result of either loving something more than we ought or the result of loving something less than we ought. We are to love …Read More

  • Integrity, Coram Deo by Burk Parsons

    FROM TABLETALK | September 2007

    What will people say about me after I die?” Have you ever asked yourself that question? It is a question that has haunted me for years, and it is one of the most captivating questions anyone can ask himself …Read More

  • It Can’t Get No Worse? by Keith Mathison

    FROM TABLETALK | May 2010

    In 1967, the Beatles released their album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. One of the classic songs on that album is titled “Getting Better.” Many people are familiar with the catchy, upbeat chorus: “I’ve got to admit …Read More

  • The Motivation for Love by Conrad Mbewe

    FROM TABLETALK | June 2012

    In his twentieth century classic, The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis imagines the demon Screwtape writing to his nephew Wormwood about the need to discover the secret as to why God loves humans. He writes, “The truth is, I slipped …Read More