Bedhead Theology

  Evangelism must be tethered to the gospel, and the gospel message proclaimed must be doctrinally clear and biblically grounded. Without a gospel message, we cannot win souls. The gospel’s central essence is the person and work of Christ. The gospel is not about me; it is about Him. The gospel is for His Glory! Our ultimate need is to enthrone Him upon our hearts. R. C. Sproul declared, “We need Christ. We need a real Christ. A Christ born of empty speculation or created to squeeze into the philosopher’s pattern simply won’t do. A recycled Christ, a Christ of compromise, can redeem no one. A Christ watered down, stripped of power, debased of glory, reduced to a symbol, or made impotent by scholarly surgery is not Christ but Antichrist.” [1] We must speak clearly to honor Christ as willing ambassadors for Christ’s cause. Therefore, the gospel stands upon these four objective truths: the gospel reveals that God is Holy, it declares that the whole of mankind has fallen under God’s...

  Growing up, during the monsoon season, it seemed that every evening the skies would roil and thunderstorms would roll in. Growing up in the country, we basked in the beauty and terror of the tumultuous rain, blinding flashes of light, and—occasionally—the destructive power of tornadoes. I went to school where we would practice tornado drills. Nevertheless, warning signs exist if you know what to look for. Often, the sky turns an ominous shade of green. Larger-than-normal hail will often fall, usually without any rain. Clouds then develop funnel shapes long before they touch the ground. More obvious signs are debris in the clouds, a loud rumbling sound, and, oftentimes, a calmness right before a tornado hits. Recognizing the warning signs is crucial in averting disaster. We stand on the precipice of such a disaster. Can we see the warning signs? I am deeply convinced that the conversations surrounding the gospel within the church need clarity. The theology we hold—especially aro...

One of the greatest struggles for preachers today is preaching that transcends time. Yes, difficulties abound in preaching. There is difficulty contextualizing for a modern audience, the opaqueness of seeking to meet the congregation’s needs, and even struggles in captivating the fleeting attention spans of modern audiences. Nevertheless, pride is one of the greatest perils preachers face in the pulpit. This struggle is two-fold. First, let me address the obvious. The tendency to conflate the greatness of God’s Word with our oratory genius is a common temptation among all preachers. As far as I can tell, this has been that way since the beginning. John the Baptist asserted, “He must increase; I must decrease” (John 3:30). He was acutely aware that he must exalt Christ above all else. This necessity has followed the church throughout history. Gregory the Great (540-604) astutely drew attention to the source of the problem. He wrote, “Since it is often the case that when a sermon is deli...

  The Long Defeat I recently learned of J. R. R. Tolkien’s concept called “the long defeat.” I have been researching this concept for a couple of weeks. I am, by no means, proficient in the study of philosophy. I often read philosophy and scratch my head, saying, “Those certainly are words.” But the long defeat struck a chord with me. It just made sense. The long defeat stands as a philosophical thought that captures Tolkien’s view of history: a slow, inevitable decline in which evil continually re-emerges, beauty fades, and human efforts inside worldly history ultimately end in loss. However, this view is far from a message of despair; the long defeat underpins the philosophy of heroic duty, perseverance, and hope. The question arises: in the face of inevitable defeat, we must decide why we fight. We do not fight for immediate victory; we fight for what is good, true, and holy. We stand as bulwarks against the evil of this age, knowing that we may very well be scarred by the b...

A quarter of a century sounds like a long time, and in fact, for the limited time we have on this planet, it is a significant milestone. Yet, as I reflect on everything that has transpired since that fateful day in 2001, I can see a world that is topsy-turvy. In some respects, our culture has advanced in leaps and bounds. The technological differences between 2001 and today show a fundamental transition. Society went from localized, physical, and highly fragmented devices to hyper-connected, cloud-based, and AI-driven platforms. Never before have people had access to the world’s wealth of information together, at the same time. On the other hand, we have lost some important aspects of our collective “soul.” As we remember the tragedy of 9/11, we must also recognize the tragedy that befalls us today—the death of civil discourse, the celebration of murder on the premise of ideology, the rabid acceleration of the death machine we call Planned Parenthood, and so much more. Given our cult...

  The church is in desperate need of gospel clarity. Rampant on every social media platform is a barrage of claims about Christianity rife with compromise. Gospel clarity must be anchored in biblical and theological consistency. Ultimately, that clarity must begin in the pulpit. An old preaching adage I first heard in my expositional preaching class asserts, “If there is a mist in the pulpit, then there will be a fog in the pew.” [1] The lack of gospel clarity among Christians stems from a lack of clarity within the local churches’ leadership. A church devoid of conversions is, plainly speaking, a dying church. A church with no gospel conviction—no evangelistic vision, passion for reaching the lost, nor any fervor for the Great Commission—has succumbed to apathy and complacency. Too often, local churches look to secular business models for church growth tactics and lose sight of their missional mandate—make disciples. Business models become transfixed on numerical growth that ...