Showing results by author "Douglas Wilson" in All Categories

The church at Corinth was infested with so-called super-apostles. They were stylish and well-spoken, and they were out to turn the church against the apostle Paul. They cast him as a frail, indecisive fumbler who got beat up everywhere he went. So Paul responded with a full-length account of the glory of Christian weakness.

What do you want most for your kids? A good job? A happy marriage? A long and healthy life? Perfect attendance at every holiday? A life without enemies? David and Esther and Job are not impressed. Some of God’s favorite characters offer us a different vision: make your children count. In this book, the goal for parents is not to keep them forever, but instead, to raise the kind of men and women who know what to do when Goliaths, tyrants, and hurricanes descend. What will your family legacy be?

Romans is more than a collection of proof texts for Reformed theology. It is an exposition of God's plan to take back the world. In this new commentary, Douglas Wilson tackles Paul's meaty letter passage by passage, explaining Paul's central message: Jesus’s death and resurrection have transformed the world. God has brought an end to the old covenant and ushered in a new covenant, joining Jews and Gentiles in one new people.

Douglas Wilson writes to a young man on how he should pursue a woman. Feminism has catechized us in many lies about what makes the sexes attracted to each other, and evangelical pastors have often only reinforced those lies with platitudes about servant-leadership. When they find out that being a doormat doesn’t attract anyone, young men often rebound to the secular manosphere. Douglas Wilson offers his own commonsense advice, sharp-edged and thoroughly biblical, not just on how to be the kind of man who attracts the right woman, but how to be the kind of man that keeps her.

The modern dating system is bankrupt. It does not train young people to form a relationship but rather to form a series of relationships, hardening themselves to all but the current one. Recreational dating encourages emotional attachments without covenantal fences and makes a joke of a father's authority. The disrespect children have for their fathers in this area is an echo of the disrespect fathers have for their own office.

How would you describe the spiritual aroma of your home? The source of this aroma is the relationship between husband and wife. Many can fake an attempt at keeping God's standards in some external way. What we cannot fake is the resulting, distinctive aroma of pleasure to God. Most marriage books address the mere externals of marriage, without seeking to understand the heart issues. Godly marriages proceed from an obedient heart, and the greatest desire of an obedient heart is the glory of God.

The gloves come off in this electric exchange, originally hosted by Christianity Today, as leading atheist Christopher Hitchens (author of God Is Not Great) and Christian apologist Douglas Wilson (author of Letter from a Christian Citizen) go head-to-head on this divisive question. The result is entertaining and provocative—a glimpse into the ongoing debate.

God has designed each family to be a culture. It is the duty of the father to ensure that the shaping takes place according to biblical wisdom. Through the Messiah, God promised blessings to his people, "their children, and their children's children forever". The norm for faithful members of the covenant is that their children will follow them in their faithfulness. The oddity should be children who fall away. Unless we reestablish faithful Christian culture in countless homes, we will never reestablish it anywhere else.

Marriage is not a vending machine, and love is not two quarters to put into it. It's a manner of life, not an exchange of commodities. So, what does it look like when a man loves a woman? Douglas Wilson answers that question in How to Exasperate Your Wife and Other Short Essays for Men, and his responses are as wide-ranging and humorous as they are incisive and down to earth. He explains why men's distorted view of wisdom handicaps their understanding of their wives, and he exposes rigid (and wrong) approaches to marriage and relationships.

Fatherlessness is a “rot that is eating away at the modern soul,” writes Douglas Wilson, and the problem goes far beyond physical absence. “Most of our families are starving for fathers, even if Dad is around, and there’s a huge cost to our children and our society because of it.”...

The so-called New Atheists have a great deal of moral indignation at all the evil in the world, but, as apologist and theologian Douglas Wilson cheerfully points out, they have no moral basis for it whatsoever. If we are merely the result of billions of years of matter in motion, then why do we feel that concentration camps, genocide, apartheid, and the like are so obviously wicked and despicable, if in fact such events are just time and chance acting on matter?

In John Knox: Stalwart Courage, Douglas Wilson staunchly defends this staunch reformer, not only lauding his stalwart courage, but also upholding his much-neglected gentler virtues - love, mercy, tenderness, and humility. At Knox’s funeral, one of his friends said, “Here lies one who neither flattered nor feared any flesh.” John Knox sought the approval of neither commoner nor queen, but only his God. John Knox was a reformer of church and culture worthy of honor and emulation, and his story should be one we know well.

Reforming Marriage, by this same author, began the discussion of covenant headship. This collection of essays, Federal Husband, continues that discussion in greater depth, dealing with more specifics of federal husbandry.

The book of Revelation was written to do just that: reveal. In this commentary, Douglas Wilson provides a passage-by-passage walkthrough of the entire book, showing how John’s most notorious prophecies concern the Fall of Jerusalem in AD 70. Explaining symbols and characters as he goes, Wilson shows from the text that not only is this book not an elaborate code, but that Revelation is not even ultimately concerned with the end of the world as we know it. Revelation is about the triumph of the Church, which always happens when the Man comes around.

Christ conquered the West the first time. And this is how he’ll do it again. And when he does it again, Christians must be ready to take the lead. Jesus really is the answer to taxes, civil resistance, and speech laws. However, Christians do not need another political platform. They need a plan. This book is that plan.

In this book, Douglas Wilson discusses how parents can help their sons cultivate true masculinity and become men who are strong and self-sacrificial, just as Christ was. This book is a part of Douglas Wilson's series of books on the family, which has helped many people trying to deal with the on the everyday messes that come with sinners trying to live under the same roof. This book on raising sons covers issues such as laziness, Christian liberty, school, sports, girls, and proper contempt for the cool.

In this audiobook, Douglas Wilson both considers the theology behind technology, work, and mission and advice on how to be productive - and to think about productivity - in the digital age. We should not rush to buy each and every new iPhone or fancy new gadget, but neither neither should we reject the new technology out of nostalgia for the good ol' days when people worked with their hands or starved.

Thirty years ago, Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning was published so that Christian parents instead of fretfully wringing their hands at the deterioration of American culture would actually do something to resist it. Pastor and school-founder Douglas Wilson called on parents to reject public schools and to give their kids a completely different type of education, with the Lordship of Jesus Christ at the center.

It is no secret that our world desperately needs change. Politicians know this and use it to collect votes. Journalists exploit it to sell newspapers and magazines. Advertisers, to sell everything else. Each of these groups (and countless others) spend their lives working to convince others that they hold the key to a better country, a better life, a better future. But what exactly is this change we all long for? And how can it ever come about?

2020 has been a year like no other. Thankfully, there was a No Quarter November to match. When he writes, Douglas Wilson usually offers qualifications for the statements that tend to ruffle feathers, and anticipates objections with nuance and balance. In this collection of NQN 2020 essays, Douglas Wilson addresses the election mayhem, women's ministries, the enneagram, the "gift of singleness", and much more.