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The Image-Bearing Piety of Being a Cog in the Wheel

If you read one book this year let it be David Bahnsen’s “Full-Time: Work and the Meaning of Life.” Why? Well, you know there are three persons in one God, and you know that you are saved by grace alone through faith alone, you know you would do well to be a part of a local church, etc. (and you do well to know and consider these things), but is that extent of the Christian life? Is your telos in this life to just white-knuckle it until you swept away yonder by and by? Surely there must be something more to this life than mere prep for the afterlife. Work must be more than just a medium to evangelize and support missionaries… Yes, yes! Tis true! There is more! Rejoice in your telos, in the glorious blessing of work that has been given you! When we work, we reflect the image of God, we have an intuitive sense of firing on all cylinders, and all seems to be in order when we submit to the Lordship of Christ in this most fundamental of spheres (both pragmatically and spiritually). Do read the book – and listen-in as we chat with Bahnsen and catch a primer on what awaits you in these foundational and timely and God-honoring and joy-yielding pages. Pro Rege!

Today we are joined by Stephen Brett Eccher to discuss the firebrand of fidelity that is Ulrich Zwingli in connection with Eccher’s new book “Zwingli the Pastor: A Life in Conflict” from Lexham press.

Was Jesus merely an “emergency measure”? Did Kuyper take the creation and culture far enough? Is the goal of life to “get saved” or is it to get saved unto the end that God intended all along? Do we overemphasize Jesus at the expense of the Trinity? All this, and more, is what the great Dutch Theologian AA Van Ruler causes us to consider. Join us as we sit down with Ernst Conradie and discuss Ernst’s project that saw a series of AA Van Ruler’s essays, called “This Earthly Life Matters," made available in English.

This might be the most important interview we have ever done. We Christians have been so concerned with maintaining our "rights" and focusing on maintaining our (pitiful) "freedom" in society that we have abdicated the very glory and honor of King Jesus and have allowed His good decrees to be trampled. Rather than asserting the crown glory of Christ we have sought ease and comfort at the cost of far too much. In this interview we sit down with the great implicational thinker David Fowler of the "God, Law & Liberty" podcast and we are given a wake-up call. It is time to think through the utterly wicked and far-reaching implications of the U.S. Supreme Court’s analysis in its 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges where the state-demi-gods have redefined marriage. But, we also discuss our own wickedness in doing nothing and seeking ease and peace. By doing nothing we have become guilty of standing approvingly while the state audaciously plays God and assumes it is the arbiter of truth. Yet, as Fowler reminds us, the government doesn’t create truth - its job is to acknowledge truth. Marriage is, and has always been, between a man and a woman who exchange promises before man and God. The shocking reality is that every minister who signs a state marriage license bends their knee to the government's arbitrary definition of marriage and takes it on as their own. It is simply an evil we can not abide. The disastrous and far reaching implications of living in a post-Obergefellian world are daunting, yet, there is much that can and should (must!) be done. We are grateful for David Fowler in sounding the alarm on this great evil. After a damning diagnosis we are offered tangible steps to see true piety take shape not just in our prayer closets but in the halls of congress and every square inch of this world that belongs to our mighty King of Kings. Pro Rege!

In this episode we are joined by Stephen O. Presley, author of "Cultural Sanctification: Engaging the World like the Early Church." to see if we might glean some insight on how to engage our post-post-Christian-now-pagan-nation.

In an increasingly secular world, Christians are often pulled in two directions. Some urge us to retreat and build insular communities. Others call upon us to wage a culture war, harnessing the government to shore up Christian cultural power.

But there is another way—and it’s as old as the church itself. Stephen O. Presley takes us back to the first few centuries AD to show us how the first Christians approached cultural engagement. Amid a pagan culture that regarded their faith with suspicion, early Christians founded a religious movement that transformed the ancient world. Looking to great theologians like Augustine, Origen, and Tertullian, Presley shows how the early church approached politics, family, public life, and more. From these examples, he draws lessons for practicing authentic, pious discernment in how we engage with the wider culture.

The Christians who came before us endured persecution to share a vision of human flourishing that changed the world. Following in their footsteps, we can sanctify our society through social witness. Readers anxious about shifting cultural tides will be left with hope in the already-present kingdom of God and the promised resurrection.

Today talking with Pastor Timothy Decker author of “A Revolutionary Reading of Romans 13: A Biblical Case for Lawful Subjection to the Civil Magistrate and Dutiful Resistance to Tyrants”



Does Romans 13 command Christians a near unqualified obedience toward the civil magistrate? Is there an appropriate occasion and even a duty to resist tyranny, even if the tyranny is not sinful, per se? The aim of this book is to shed light on the fact that Paul's appeal for submission to governmental authorities in Romans 13 is far narrower than it so often gets treated. The many events and crises of 2020 revealed the broad brush strokes Christians often painted with it and thereby abuse of it. It is here argued that the apostle Paul wrote Romans 13 within a specific historical context, a pastoral occasion if you will, to take up the matter of warding off the common Jewish revolutionary spirit so pervasive in that period. Such a sentiment of private revolution among church members of Rome would have undermined a Gentile government and thereby destroyed the gospel influence of the Christian church in Rome. In this way, this book offers a revolutionary reading of Romans 13—that Paul opposed private revolution among private citizens. Therefore, rightly understood, Romans 13 teaches lawful subjection to the civil magistrate while at the same time affirming a Christian's duty to resist tyranny.