History isn’t what you’d call “straightforward.” It’s notorious for raising as many questions as it settles.

What is history, really? How do we reach sensible interpretations of it? Which criteria are most important? Are we to prioritize facts or meanings? Does history tell one story or many?

Some of these questions are more puzzling than others, of course, but it’s the question of interpretation that’s a recurring fascination for Christians. Perplexed by challenges and crises, communities of..

The exhibit hall resembled a department store in December as women circled dozens of tables piled with colorful goods. Only it was summer, and shoppers had the singular goal of purchasing gospel resources—books, Bibles, DVDs, and more.

Women flooded into the Indianapolis Convention Center last June to attend The Gospel Coalition’s third National Women’s Conference (TGCW16). The three-day event became the largest TGC gathering to date with more than 7,300 women from all 50 states and 40 countrie..

Of all the Bible’s many colorful characters, none are quite so exasperating as Job’s friends. Herod might chop off your head, and Judas might stab you in the back, but Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar will hurt you with Bible verses.

Job’s actual losses take two brief chapters to recount (Job 1–2), but the tortuous dialogue that follows drones on for 35 chapters (Job 3–37). I wonder which agonized Job more: his initial suffering or the extended indictment that followed?

The problem with Job’s comf..

Fleming Rutledge’s The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ is an extraordinary book. It’s theologically deep and beautifully written, pastoral and scholarly, ecumenical and evangelical. Like its author, it’s Episcopal but not as you know it. It’s endorsed by people you rarely find endorsing the same book: Stephen Westerholm and David Bentley Hart, Kate Sonderegger and Stanley Hauerwas, Larry Hurtado and Robert Jenson. In some ways, it’s the successor to John Stott’s The Cross of..

In 1975, when he was just 13 years old, Ed Copeland spent his summer working in the cornfields of Illinois. Although he eventually became a lawyer, a pastor, and a TGC Council member, he was first a detasseler, removing the top most part from corn plants to encourage cross-pollination and higher yields.

It was “grueling and tedious” work, Ed says, but it prepared him for the pastorate.

Perseverance

Detasseling was “a rite of passage” in the Corn Belt. Teenage boys “too young to work at fast-..

Sam Allberry—editor for TGC, speaker for RZIM, founding editor of Living Out, and author of Is God Anti-Gay?—addressing the Church of England General Synod in London this week.

Related:

You Are Not Your Sexuality (Sam Allberry)
Isn’t the Christian View of Sexuality Dangerous and Harmful? (Sam Allberry)
How Can the Church Help Those Battling Same-Sex Attraction? (Sam Allberry)
What Christians Just Don’t Get About LGBT Folks (Rosaria Butterfield)
Why Is God’s Sexual Ethic Good for the World?..

From a florist in Washington State to preachers in the Bahamas, Christians are expressing concerns about how U.S. government policies are trampling on their rights of conscience.

Last month nearly 300 minister and church leaders from Caribbean nations sent a letter to President Trump expressing concern about the State Department’s efforts to “coerce our countries into accepting a mistaken version of marriage.” And yesterday the Washington State Supreme Court ruled against a Christian florist wh..

“This is who I really am.”

In those six simple words lies the heart of one of the most important and most controversial topics in our culture right now: gender identity. Such a sentence carries heavy meaning, especially for those who have suffered confusion and dissonance when it comes to gender and sexuality.

Our cultural conversations about transgenderism, gender dysphoria, and sexual identity matter not ultimately because of social or political implications, but because of what these issue..

Everyone wants to be blessed. We want to be blessed in our relationships, our businesses, and our churches. We want to be blessed in life, death, and eternity. The opposite of being blessed is being cursed—and nobody wants that.

No one knows where to find blessing better than Jesus does, so when he speaks about blessing in the beatitudes (Matt. 5:1–12), I want to listen, and so should you.

What does a blessed life look like? Is it having a happy marriage? Gifted children? Good health? Fulfilli..

If we believe that the truth of the gospel matters—and we who identify with TGC do—then how should we speak about, tweet about, and argue against false teachers who lead people away from the truth? And how do we talk about true teachers who mistakenly counteract their own theology?

Defending the gospel against both its enemies and, at times, its friends is not easy. On the one hand, we desire not to be cowards; on the other hand, we desire not to be provocateurs.

How can we find our way? Here ..