John Mark Hicks

Salvation Through Judgment and Mercy is the title of Bryan Estelle’s book in The Gospel According to the Old Testament series (Presbyterian and Reformed). Judgment for Jonah is not retribution or revenge; it is the means of salvation. Through judgment, God saves Jonah from himself and renews Jonah’s missional call. God is not punishing Jonah; […]

Jonah refused God’s commission, but that was not the end of the story. God pursued Jonah. The narrative begins with God’s call (Jonah 1:2), moves to Jonah’s refusal by flight (Jonah 1:3), and now God pursues Jonah through wind, storm, and fish. Back-and-forth, God invites and Jonah refuses until Jonah, in the belly of the […]

The College Hills Church of Christ in Lebanon, TN, invited me to teach a class on “Yet Will I Trust Him: Trusting God in the Storms of Life” throughout January and February 2014.  It was a good experience for me, though whether it was for everyone else is something I cannot judge. I am grateful […]

While the first half of Micah’s first oracle assured Judah that God was serious in treating them much like he did their northern neighbor Israel. Yahweh, Micah warned Judah, is about to appear at the gates of Jerusalem with the Assyrian army after they devastate the cities of southwestern Judah. In response to the message, […]

The Lamb, having taken the book of prophetic judgment from the hand of God, now begins to open it by breaking the seals. Systematically, the Lamb breaks one seal after another–six in Revelation 6. As each seal is opened John hears and sees a variety of images that evidence divine judgment or are related in […]

Yesterday I received my copy of J. Caleb Clanton’s new book entitled The Philosophy of Religion of Alexander Campbell (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2013). I had previously read the manuscript in early 2012 and am pleased to see it in print. Caleb taught philosophy at Pepperdine for several years but now teaches at Lipscomb.  I am […]

Ever since the emergence of open theism on the evangelical scene in the 1990s, there have been several attempts to saddle Arminianism with the theological interests of open theism. On the one hand, Reformed theologians find it to their advantage to identify Arminianism and open theism, if for no other reason than the slippery slope […]

In the second issue of the rebirthed Gospel Advocate in 1866, Lipscomb addresses the question of how God was or was not involved in the Civil War which ended eight months ago. He asks, “Does God Take Part in the Conflicts of the Kingdoms of this World?”  His answer, “Yes!” God has a role in everything within […]

How we pray, how often we pray and why we pray reveals much about our spiritual walk with God. David Lipscomb printed a statement by a friend who encountered people among the Stone-Campbell Movement who did not seem to pray fervently.  The inquirer wrote, “I heard one of your leading ministers say a short time […]

Since the publication of William Young’s book The Shack in the light of my own personal journey into the world of spiritual recovery (which I experienced in 2008).  I found much in Young’s novel that paralleled my own experience. It is now available on Amazon entitled:  Meeting God at the Shack: A Journey into Spiritual Recovery. For […]