Martin Luther reached the peak of his evangelical trajectory with his 1525 book On the Bondage of the Will. That’s where he made his strongest case for justification by grace through faith. The book didn’t come from nowhere; it was a response to Desiderius Erasmus’s criticisms in On the Freedom of the Will. Now, it was Luther’s turn to argue for God’s sovereignty in salvation. Luther’s view of reality wasn’t fatalistic. Humans aren’t mere puppets. Rather, he acknowledged that while humans were created free to choose good or evil, Adam’s iniquity was passed on to his descendants in the form of original sin and the sinful nature. Human beings are now born spiritually dead and must be resurrected by the Holy Spirit. On their own, they can do nothing that counts as righteousness before God. Erasmus objected to this view of humanity. His call for a Christian reformation of behavior was rooted in a more optimistic understanding of human nature after the fall. Yes, grace was necessary for salvation, but it was still up to the individual to cooperate with grace. In his long and bombastic response, Luther countered that salvation is entirely of grace, from beginning to end. The resulting argument is both entertaining and enlightening. Bound Will, Freed Sinner Luther’s chief Reformation insight was the distinction between law and gospel, or that which we must do and that which has been done for us. According to Luther, Erasmus’s vision of Christianity was an endless slavery to the law rather than the freedom of the gospel. Erasmus had claimed that the existence of divine commands in Scripture implied humanity’s ability to fulfill them, but Luther asserted the purpose of God’s law was to reveal our inability to fulfill it and to point us to salvation in Christ alone. Luther wrote, “It is nothing but law, law at its peak, when [Christ] says, ‘Return to me,’ and it is grace when he says, ‘I will return to you’” (196–97). Acknowledging the bondage of the will means standing before God as a beggar with empty hands, receiving everything necessary for salvation as a gracious gift. This overt dependence on grace isn’t just one way to receive salvation. According to Luther, absolute dependence on God’s grace is essential: For as long as [a man] is persuaded that he himself can do even the least thing toward his salvation, he retains some self-confidence and does not altogether despair of himself, and therefore he is not humbled before God, but presumes that there is—or at least hopes or desires that there may be—some place, time, and work for him, by which he may at length attain to salvation. (137) We can never receive as a gift a salvation we think we might at some point be able to earn. Clarity of Scripture Yet salvation by grace alone wasn’t the only doctrine at stake in this debate. The two men also butted heads over the clarity of Scripture. Erasmus argued Scripture is so unclear about the issue of free will that the preacher should avoid discussing it for fear of causing social unrest. Luther realized this called into question the nature of God’s Word. We can never receive as a gift a salvation we think we might at some point be able to earn. “The Holy Spirit is no Skeptic, and it is not doubts or mere opinions that he has written on our hearts, but assertions more sure and certain than life itself and all experience,” Luther argued (109). Erasmus was, in Luther’s view, contradicting the spirit of Christianity by avoiding plain statements about such an important teaching. “For it is not the mark of a Christian mind to take no delight in assertions,” argued Luther. “On the contrary, a man must delight in assertions or he will be no Christian” (105). Luther differentiated between two types of clarity in Scripture: the basic, external meaning of the text, and the internal comprehension of its spiritual principles. Therefore, he observed, If you speak of the internal clarity, no man perceives one iota of what is in the Scriptures unless he has the Spirit of God. . . . If, on the other hand, you speak of the external clarity, nothing at all is left obscure or ambiguous, but everything there is in the Scriptures has been brought out by the Word into the most definite light, and published to all the world. (112) Thus, the bondage of the will touches on the fundamental need of every Christian to know he or she is loved by God, is justified before him, and will dwell with him eternally. This is no obscure debate for scholars but a theological topic at the heart of the spiritual life of ordinary Christians. Reformation’s Hinge Point Though On the Bondage of the Will is often remembered for its colorful insults, Luther also paid Erasmus a compliment, acknowledging he’d put his finger on the central issue of the Reformation: the fully gracious nature of our salvation, accomplished by Christ alone. “You and you alone have seen the question on which everything hinges, and have aimed at the vital spot,” he wrote (333). The bondage of the will touches on the fundamental need of every Christian to know he or she is loved by God, is justified before him, and will dwell with him eternally. Luther’s book had a major ripple effect on Reformation theology. It helped to define the Lutheran movement throughout the 16th century and remains a favorite historic text among Reformed Christians. It also had an immediate practical effect, pushing away some members of Erasmus’s scholarly group and reasserting justification by grace alone through faith alone as the Reformation’s central tenet. On the Bondage of the Will is an academic text full of classical allusions. It’s best approached with a good critical edition. For readers nervous about the scholastic argumentation or the book’s sheer length, take the advice of Luther scholar James Nestingen: Begin with the final portion, in which Luther makes the biblical case for his position, then dive into the opening sections where he critiques Erasmus’s argument and methodology. The translation by J. I. Packer and O. R. Johnston is beloved for its dynamic language. For those who have the time, Luther and Erasmus: Free Will and Salvation from The Library of Christian Classics is a solid translation of both books in one volume. Luther’s response to Erasmus exposes the real fault line of the Reformation. It wasn’t indulgences, papal power, or clerical marriage but whether sinners are merely dirty people who need washing or spiritually dead people who need resurrecting. Luther’s paradox is stunning: Our inability is the key to God’s grace. To be bound to God in love isn’t a burden but the believer’s only assurance of salvation. That’s why On the Bondage of the Will remains as vital now as it was five centuries ago.

Loving Jesus means loving our neighbors as well. But our culture is increasingly post-Christian, post-church, and post-reached. Our neighbors feel further away than they’ve ever been. So what shifts are needed to speak Jesus in this culture? In this talk from TGC25, followed by a Q&A, Sam Chan teaches how to speak about Jesus more effectively. In This Episode 0:00 – Introduction and personal background 2:11 – Challenges in evangelism today 4:01 – Concept of plausibility structures 8:54 – Merging universes of friends 15:10 – Disciple-making evangelism vs. event-based evangelism 15:32 – The power of conversation in evangelism 24:01 – Becoming an unofficial, de facto chaplain 30:53 – Role of wisdom and calm presence 34:18 – Resources and final thoughts Resources Mentioned:  How to Talk About Jesus (Without Being That Guy): Personal Evangelism in a Skeptical World by Sam Chan Evangelism in a Skeptical World: How to Make the Unbelievable News About Jesus More Believable by Sam Chan The Great Dechurching: Who’s Leaving, Why Are They Going, and What Will It Take to Bring Them Back? by Jim Davis and Michael Graham The Missing Peace: How Christmas Brings the Calm We Crave by Sam Chan 321: online resources from Glen Scrivener SIGN UP for one of our newsletters to stay informed about TGC’s latest resources. Help The Gospel Coalition renew and unify the contemporary church in the ancient gospel: Give today. Don’t miss an episode of The Gospel Coalition Podcast: Apple Podcasts Spotify YouTube

Jasmine Crockett Says She’ll Impose ‘Ethics Guidelines’ on Supreme Court Justices If Elected Senator

The fingerprint of one of seafarers who built the oldest known wooden plank boat in Scandinavia has been discovered in the tar used to waterproof it. A new study of caulking and cordage fragments revealed the presence of the fingerprint and provided new evidence on the boat’s possible origins and the techniques used to make it. First discovered by peat diggers in the Hjortspring bog on the island of Als off Jutland, Denmark, in the 1880s, it was fully excavated in 1921 and 1922. About 40% of the boat was recovered, enough to allow a full reconstruction of its form. The boat was about 20 meters (66 feet) long, weighed 530 kilos (1,170 pounds), and could carry 24 people plus gear. It was built from lime wood planks sewn together with cordage. A large number of spearpoints and shields were deposited in the bog with it, enough to outfit about 80 warriors. Archaeologists believe raiders in up to four similar-sized boats attacked Als but were defeated. The islanders then deposited the boat and the raiders’ weapons in the bog as offerings. The remains of the boat were conserved, stabilized and put on display in the National Museum of Denmark since 1937. Because they were treated with alum at first and then later with PEG, the wood could no longer be radiocarbon dated, but a new excavation of the find site in 1987 found additional wood fragments that could be C-14 dated. The results date the boat to the 4th or 3rd century B.C. The recent study analyzed parts of the boat — fragments of caulking and cordage — that were collected in the original 1920s excavation, but had never been subjected to chemical preservation treatments. Modern technical analysis found the cordage is made from lime bast with long spin strands that would have kept the lashes pliable during construction of the boat and in later repairs. Taken together, the results of our analysis of the Hjortspring cordage illustrate the skill and sophistication of ancient Scandinavian boatbuilding techniques. It is clear that the cordage found in the boat was made by highly skilled craftspeople who were well versed in what must have been a long-standing boat building tradition. Due to the fact that the cordage fragments were untarred, it is possible they were kept on the boat for potential repairs. Such cordage could have been spliced into existing lines in the manner identified in our experimental trials. It is likely that both caulking material and cordage were kept on the ship in order to conduct repairs while at sea. The caulking materials contained the imprints of cordage, knots and plank seams as well as the partial fingerprint. They were subjected to gas chromatography – mass spectrometry (GC-MS) which revealed the caulking was likely composed of a coniferous tar, probably pine, and far. “The boat was waterproofed with pine pitch, which was surprising. This suggests the boat was built somewhere with abundant pine forests,” says Mikael Fauvelle. Several scholars had previously suggested that the boat and its crew came from the region around modern-day Hamburg in Germany. Instead, the researchers now believe they came from the Baltic Sea region. “If the boat came from the pine forest-rich coastal regions of the Baltic Sea, it means that the warriors who attacked the island of Als chose to launch a maritime raid over hundreds of kilometers of open sea,” says Mikael Fauvelle. The print was likely left during repairs to the boat by a crew member. Researchers hope to extract ancient DNA from the caulking pitch to find out more about the seafarers who manned this vessel 2,300 years ago.

President Donald Trump said Thursday he would like to see the Senate confirm his nominee for the post of Religious Freedom ambassador, former Rep. Mark Walker (R-NC). During an executive order signing…

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[View Article at Source]At last: clarity, hierarchy, and a foreign policy with a spine. The post The NSS Is the Strategy We Have Waited For appeared first on The American Conservative.

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Foreign Affairs The NSS Is the Strategy We Have Waited For At last: clarity, hierarchy, and a foreign policy with a spine. (Photo by DANIEL HEUER / AFP via Getty Images) The newly published National Security Strategy is beautiful. What makes the document powerful isn’t the prose but the clarity. For the first time in decades, America has a strategy grounded not in theories, slogans, or airy talk of an “international community,” but in the concrete interests of a real nation: our own. In Newsweek last year, I argued that America had to shake off the primacist hangover of the post–Cold War with what I called foreign policy stoicism: humility, hierarchy, and a sober respect for the nation-state, oriented toward changing what can most easily be changed and prioritizing the most concrete threats. The think-tank world—even the conservative one—treats these arguments as eccentric, premature, or impolite. But the new NSS doesn’t merely acknowledge this logic; it snaps into place like a long-delayed correction. For those of us who have been making this case from the margins, the document feels revolutionary not because it echoes us, but because it drags the center of gravity toward reality.  It is not an op-ed; it’s a governing blueprint.  Many commentators, desperate to shoehorn the document into familiar categories, have rushed to call it “realist” or “restrained.” But this entirely misses the point. America First, as presented here, is not realism in the graduate-seminar sense. It is realism in the statesman’s sense: clarity about ends, honesty about means, and an unapologetic commitment to the fortunes of the republic.  The NSS captures this in one of its most important lines: America First is “pragmatic without being ‘pragmatist’, realistic without being ‘realist’, principled without being ‘idealistic’, muscular without being ‘hawkish’, and restrained without being ‘dovish’.” That is not merely a doctrinal statement; it is a moral one. The intellectual schools of foreign policy have their uses, but the real task of strategy is simpler and older: determine what is necessary for the survival and flourishing of the nation and then do that, without distraction, apology, or delusion. This also explains why so many critics, especially in Europe, have reacted to the strategy with alarm and theatrical indignation. Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk lamented, “Dear American friends, Europe is your closest ally, not your problem.” A chorus of think-tankers joined him. But these reactions say more about European expectations than about the strategy itself. Far from dismissing Europe, the NSS places Europe exactly where it belongs: not above America’s core interests, not beneath them, but within a hierarchy of priorities. The truth is that Europe’s critique is built on selectively projected fantasies. For years, and currently, Europe has condemned America’s pursuit of its own interests, especially in the Western Hemisphere, while simultaneously expecting the United States to underwrite its defense, restrain its adversaries, and absorb the political and financial costs of its own hesitations. Yet the same Europe that demands unwavering American commitment has repeatedly hedged with China, ignored the obvious vulnerabilities of its energy policy, and treated its alliance with the U.S. as a kind of moral entitlement rather than a strategic relationship.  The NSS simply attempts to restore symmetry. It acknowledges Europe’s historic and cultural importance and the enduring value of the alliance, while making the obvious point that sovereign nations have sovereign responsibilities. States are not schoolchildren. They respond to incentives. They pursue interests. They can and should be pushed, not coddled. The United States expects Europe to contribute not because we care less about Europe, but because we believe Europe can do more.  The most striking aspect of the NSS is that it shatters silence about the Western Hemisphere in particular. For decades, major think tanks have ignored the region. They maintain chairs for Europe, Asia, and the Middle East; host conferences on Indo-Pacific architecture and European burden-sharing; release white papers on the Gulf, NATO, Taiwan. Yet the hemisphere, the region that most directly shapes the survival of the American republic, was largely treated as an afterthought. The very few people working on hemispheric issues can assure you: this is the most pathbreaking development in U.S. foreign policy in years. The NSS finally acknowledges what has long been obvious: Asia may be the global priority, but the hemisphere is the civilizational one. The NSS finally says out loud what many of us have argued quietly: proximity shapes power. If the United States wants to compete with China—economically, technologically, militarily—it must simultaneously secure the space in which its own republic exists. A great power does not project strength globally while hemorrhaging authority regionally. China seems to get this instinctively. It does not confront nuclear competitors while tolerating cartel rule on its own doorstep. It does not speak of deterrence while permitting mass migration that strains the civic and economic foundations of the nation itself. A republic that cannot control its borders cannot control its destiny. A country that allows its hemisphere to be infiltrated by hostile powers cannot act with clarity abroad.  Every statesman from John Quincy Adams and Alexander Hamilton onward understood that the Western Hemisphere is not a sentimental concern; it is a strategic prerequisite for national survival. What the NSS offers is not simply nostalgia for the Monroe Doctrine, nor a Cold War revival, nor a concession to diaspora pressure groups. It offers something far simpler: a recognition that the United States must secure its neighborhood if it intends to remain a sovereign power. Just as the Founders believed, just as the early republic believed, just as every serious strategist has believed, the hemisphere matters most because geography is not an academic abstraction. This, too, is part of America First’s philosophical simplicity. It begins with what is directly in front of us, not with what flatters our moral vanity. Some critics dismiss this as overly transactional or insufficiently moral. But the NSS demonstrates the opposite. It is moral precisely because it is responsible. It understands that before the United States can lead a coalition in Asia, or shape outcomes in Europe, or broker peace in the Middle East, it must remain a functioning republic. A country that is not confident in its sovereignty, not secure in its borders, not rooted in its own civilizational inheritance, is not a country capable of bearing the burdens of a great power. America First is not isolationist. It is not primacist. It is republican in the deepest sense. It is a strategic doctrine grounded in the belief that the American people deserve a government that protects them before it protects the world. The genius of the NSS is that it refuses to anthropomorphize states or sentimentalize alliances. It does not treat allies as fragile ornaments or adversaries as cartoon villains. It does not pretend that the United States can forever subsidize those who refuse to subsidize themselves. It rejects the unseriousness of the last 30 years: the fantasy that America could dominate the world at no cost, with no prioritization, and without consequence at home.  The NSS demands more of Europe because Europe has the wealth, the population, and the institutions to do more—and because the alliance must be reciprocal if it is to endure. It reframes Asia not as an arena for ideological crusade but as the central theater of economic and technological competition. It approaches the Middle East not as a moral mission but as a domain of interests. And it treats Africa not as a canvas for liberal guilt but as a landscape of opportunities and risks. Not all disruptions are destructive. Any honest historian knows that the most destabilizing act can be simply to face reality after decades of refusing to see it. The NSS forces that reckoning. It isn’t a manifesto or a theory. It’s a strategy built not for the world we wished for, but for the world we actually inhabit. In the end, its power lies in restoring American statecraft to its proper foundation: a sovereign people deserves a sovereign strategy. For the first time in a long time, we finally have one. The post The NSS Is the Strategy We Have Waited For appeared first on The American Conservative.