The Whole Counsel

In today’s episode of The Whole Counsel Podcast, Dr. John Snyder continues his examination of the writings of Welsh pastor Thomas Charles of Bala, focusing on the final section of his essay, “The Operations of the Holy Spirit.” Charles considers the seriousness of grieving the Holy Spirit, particularly when believers respond with carelessness and ungratefulness toward the One who has shown them su...

In this episode of The Whole Counsel Podcast, Dr. John Snyder continues his series on the great Christian letter writers by turning to an essay by Thomas Charles, the influential Welsh Calvinistic Methodist leader of the late eighteenth century. In The Operations of the Holy Spirit, Charles explores the Holy Spirit's work in the salvation and spiritual life of believers. Drawing on the Puritan emp...

In this episode of The Whole Counsel Podcast, John Snyder returns to the writings of Welsh pastor Thomas Charles, examining his 1784 essay “Natural and Renewed Conscience” taken from Thomas Charles’s Spiritual Counsels. Charles explores the difference between the conscience of an unconverted person and the conscience of a believer whose heart has been renewed by the Holy Spirit. Both may recognize...

In this episode of The Whole Counsel Podcast, John Snyder explores Thomas Charles’s 1784 essay “Realizing Faith,” which examines the nature of biblical faith and its power to transform the Christian’s view of life. Drawing from Hebrews 11:1, Charles describes faith as more than simply believing that certain things are true. Faith lays hold of the unseen spiritual realities revealed in Scripture, m...

In this episode of The Whole Counsel Podcast, Dr. John Snyder explores Thomas Charles’s essay on spiritual appetite, written in 1782. Charles compares the believer’s hunger for God to physical hunger and paints a portrait of spiritual health. Charles gives three reasons why Scripture’s physical metaphor of hunger and thirst perfectly reflects spiritual appetite. Both physical and spiritual appetit...

In this episode of The Whole Counsel, Dr. John Snyder returns to the writings of Welsh pastor and theologian Thomas Charles, focusing on Charles’s essay on divine guidance. Instead of offering a formula for discovering God’s will in every decision, Charles presents a broader, more biblical vision: the Christian life is a life of following the living God. Using Israel’s wilderness journey as his pr...

In this episode of The Whole Counsel, Dr. John Snyder continues the series on Thomas Charles’s pastoral letters, focusing on a letter he wrote to his newlywed wife, Sally. She was still struggling with doubts about her spiritual condition and assurance of salvation. Charles responds with tenderness but also with strengthening words. He urges her not to give her doubts “any quarter,” arguing that p...

In this week’s episode of The Whole Counsel Podcast, Dr. John Snyder discusses a letter from Thomas Charles to his future wife, Sarah Jones, also known as Sally. The letter is found in Thomas Charles’s Spiritual Counsels, published by Banner of Truth. Thomas Charles was mentored by John Newton and was a leader in Wales during the Evangelical Revival. Although we do not have Sally’s letter, we can...

“Thomas Charles is God’s gift to North Wales.” —Daniel Rowland This week on The Whole Counsel, we return to our series on great letter-writers in Christianity over the past 500 years. In this episode, we are introduced to Thomas Charles, a Welshman whose ministry is worth noting. He was converted under the preaching of Daniel Rowland in the mid-18th century and later studied for the ministry at Je...

In episode five of Biblical Help for Life’s Problems, Dr. John Snyder is once again joined by pastor and counselor Louis Sacran. Drawing on Romans 13:14, Louis helps us understand sanctification biblically and practically. How do we grow and change as believers? How do we mature? We must understand the inner workings of our hearts (our desires) and our walk (our actions), and how they are connecte...

This week on the Whole Counsel, Louis Sacran, an experienced pastor and biblical counselor, sits down with Dr. John Snyder to discuss how to apply what we have learned so far in this series to live in accordance with our purpose. As Christians, our purpose is clear. Our purpose is to please God, and we please Him by loving Him and loving people. Louis helps us to see that everything we do is eithe...

In today’s episode of The Whole Counsel, Dr. John Snyder is once again joined by Louis Sacran, an experienced pastor and counselor. In session three of Biblical Help for Life’s Problems, Louis addresses our ideas about God’s faithfulness. God’s faithfulness is not the same as God fulfilling all our preferences for life. Louis takes us to various passages to clarify what it means for God to be fait...

In today’s episode of The Whole Counsel, Dr. John Snyder is joined by Louis Sacran, an experienced pastor and counselor from Ripley, Mississippi. Today, John and Louis discuss a biblical perspective on trials. Using 1 Corinthians 10:13 as a starting point, Louis explains that trials are real, and they hurt. They are also common to all humanity. He reminds us that God is faithful and that we have c...

This week on The Whole Counsel, John is joined by Louis Sacran to discuss how to handle difficult problems biblically. Louis has many years of experience as both a pastor and a counselor. John has asked Louis to discuss the most common problems he encounters among believers. We all, from time to time, face problems that are especially hard for us. In this first episode, Louis offers us wise advice...

This week we are taking a short break between series and re-airing a favorite episode in which John Snyder is joined by a long-time friend and fellow minister, Jordan Thomas. You may recognize Jordan as a contributor to the studies Behold Your God: Rethinking God Biblically and Behold Your God: The Weight of Majesty. John and Jordan spent a few weeks discussing the descriptions of Jesus found in t...

There is a secret to finding contentment. The secret has been revealed in the Bible, and Christians have proclaimed it for 2000 years. Despite this, humanity seems stubbornly confused about the source of happiness. We are naturally inclined to look for it in all the wrong places. The secret to finding contentment is that you don’t find it by pursuing contentment itself, but by looking for it in Ch...

There is a vast difference between contentment and complacency, though we may be tempted toward the latter. In this episode of The Whole Counsel, John Snyder and Justin Miller explore why biblical contentment is never passive, indifferent, or spiritually stagnant. Rather than settling for “enough” of Christ, the believer who is truly content finds that satisfaction in Him creates an even greater d...

Contentment is one of the distinguishing marks of the Christian life—but it is also one of the most difficult graces to cultivate. Why is it so hard to gain and so easy to lose? In the third episode of our A Life of Joy series, Justin Miller and Dr. John Snyder examine five of the greatest obstacles to Christian contentment: worldliness, busyness, bitterness, grief, and opposition. Drawing from Sc...

In the first episode of this series, Justin Miller helped us understand what Christian contentment is and why it differs from both complacency and stoicism. But if contentment is not something we naturally possess, how do we learn it? In this episode, Dr. John Snyder and Justin Miller explore Paul’s statement in Philippians 4:11, “I have learned to be content.” Together they consider how God uses...

For years, believers have turned to Jeremiah Burroughs’ classic work The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment to learn what it means to rest in God’s wise and fatherly providence. In this new series, Dr. John Snyder is joined by Pastor Justin Miller to discuss his forthcoming book, A Life of Joy: Learning Christian Contentment, which seeks to bring these timeless truths to a new generation of Chris...

Samuel Rutherford’s letters are often remembered for their soaring descriptions of the beauty and loveliness of Christ. But Rutherford was not content merely to comfort sleepy Christians. He also knew how to awaken them. In this final episode on Samuel Rutherford, Dr. John Snyder examines a series of Rutherford’s letters written to stir believers out of spiritual lethargy and call them to earnestn...

Samuel Rutherford knew suffering, imprisonment, isolation, and loss. Yet from his prison cell came some of the richest descriptions of communion with Christ ever written. In this episode of Dr. John Snyder continues exploring Rutherford’s letters by focusing on one central theme: the nearness of God. Drawing from Rutherford’s prison correspondence, Dr. Snyder examines the different ways Scripture...

This week we continue our study through the letters of Samuel Rutherford by looking at the cost Rutherford paid for following Christ faithfully. Dr. John Snyder gives an overview of Rutherford’s turbulent life, including his imprisonment, exile from his congregation, work at St. Andrews, influence at the Westminster Assembly, and his final years under house arrest awaiting trial for treason. From...

Samuel Rutherford’s letters are filled with counsel for Christians walking through suffering, affliction, persecution, and grief. Having endured imprisonment, bereavement, sickness, and deep ecclesiastical conflict, Rutherford wrote not as a detached theologian, but as a pastor acquainted with sorrow. In this episode of The Whole Counsel Podcast, we examine Rutherford’s teaching on Christian suffe...

In this episode of The Whole Counsel Podcast, Dr. John Snyder returns to the letters of Samuel Rutherford to consider a central theme of his writings, the love and loveliness of Christ. Drawing from The Life of Samuel Rutherford by Andrew Thompson, this episode highlights Rutherford’s emphasis on experiential Christianity, where truth is not only understood but lived. Rutherford presents Christ as...