The Whole Counsel

In a way that only he can, John Owen ends his helpful work on the mortification of sin with two conclusions. The first contains eight preparatory points for consideration. Once considered, he gives two applications to help us make progress in mortifying our sin to the glory of Christ. This week’s episode of The Whole Counsel is bittersweet because it is the last one with Jeremy Walker. But focusin...

The battle to mortify sin can seem exhausting, discouraging, and overwhelming. But it is a battle that we as Christians will fight and, ultimately, we will win. We have promises throughout Scripture making it clear that we will shed this fallen nature. We will see God without the barrier of sin between us. Christ will conquer all the sin in our lives. But while we live and breathe and walk in this...

Having discussed the necessity of mortifying sin and the flesh, watching and praying through Christ, John Snyder and Jeremy Walker move to discuss the practical helps God provides for us in fighting sin, repenting when we fall, and seeing restoration in our communion with God. We often look for a silver bullet when it comes to difficulties of the Christian life. We want an easier way to kill sin....

Richard Owen Roberts is a long-term friend of Media Gratiae. Even before Media Gratiae existed, Mr. Roberts played an important role in John Snyder's life. In this special episode, we want to introduce Mr. Roberts and International Awakening Ministries to those of you who may be unfamiliar with them. We also want to let everyone know of an upcoming conference IAM is presenting on November 27-30 at...

Robert Murray M’Cheyne described the human heart as gunpowder and temptation as a spark that will ignite the heart in sin. The most careful practice we can have is to keep our hearts damp by gazing upon Christ. In this week’s episode, John Snyder and Jeremy Walker share how Owen encourages us to keep our hearts damp by the dual command to watch and pray. What must we watch for? How must we pray? J...

We at The Whole Counsel love Puritans. We have benefited so much from their sermons, prayers, and books, it is our delight to discuss them and hopefully whet your appetite to read their words. In this new series of podcasts, Dr. John Snyder is going to walk through two books from the Puritan, John Owen, with our longtime friend Jeremy Walker. In this first episode, Jeremy and John are discussing O...

We have had 15 discussions of the Christian’s relationship to the God’s moral law in this series. If anything, we hope we have shown you this topic is important and worth a great deal of meditation. In the final conversation of this series, John Snyder and Steve Crampton ask what are the right and wrong ways of using the law. We’ve already answered the lies of antinomianism, the belief we shouldn’...

Next week we will finish our series on The Law and the Gospel. In this series we have sought to study the New Testament Christian’s relationship to God’s moral law. Before salvation, the Law could only offer condemnation. It pointed out our flaws but could provide no cure for our sin-sickness. But now, because the Christian belongs to the Kingdom of Grace, God’s moral law has become the path we wa...

This week we return to our ongoing discussion of the Christian’s relationship to both God’s Law and His grace. The emphasis this week is simply to explain what Jesus meant when He said He came to “fulfill the law.” We can understand this fulfillment in a few different ways, but Ernie Reisinger’s book offers us a great deal of help. Dr. John Snyder and Steve Crampton discuss not just how we can fin...

Regular listeners will know we have been releasing complete interviews from our production of Behold Your God: Rethinking God Biblically. This is to commemorate and celebrate the Lord’s kindness over the last 10 years. This week we highlight the interview with Andrew Davies, a Welsh minister who met Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones and J.I Packer as a child. He also served as a pastor in New Zealand for a t...

At this time 10 years ago we were putting the final touches and beginning the process of manufacturing Behold Your God: Rethinking God Biblically. This study has gone much further in the last decade than we ever thought possible. But the Lord has seen fit to use it around America and outside her borders in places such as Russia, The Netherlands, South Africa, Canada, and more. Each video session o...

If you have gone through the Media Gratiae study Behold Your God: The Weight of Majesty, you will know that God’s attributes include being just, good, and kind. So how can a just, good, and kind God require the adherence to a law that people may not understand or be able to follow? That is the topic of discussion this week for Dr. John Snyder and Steve Crampton. They are sharing their notes from c...

Throughout this podcast series, we have been following the flow of thought in Ernie Reisinger’s book The Law and the Gospel. In his discussion on antinomianism, Reisigner gives 20 errors connected to this heretical understanding of God’s law in the Christian life. This week, we share most of those 20 ideas and stop to discuss a few of them. To help you better keep up with the flow of ideas, we wan...

It’s been a few weeks since John Snyder and Steve Crampton came together to discuss Ernie Reisinger’s The Law and the Gospel. But this week they are back and they are tackling the topic of antinomianism. This term, which we believe to be coined by Martin Luther, describes a doctrine in which God’s Law has no place in the Christian life. Paul himself was accused of being an antinomian, as was Marty...

While we don’t typically focus on contemporary issues on the Whole Counsel, we wanted to take one episode to introduce you to an author that we trust on a topic that has become the source of unexpected confusion in many churches. Michael David Perkins, in his recently released book Dangerous Affirmations, provides a clear perspective on the recent trend of affirming “gay Christianity.” In a carefu...

Ten years ago we were working hard on creating the study that became Behold Your God: Rethinking God Biblically. Part of that work included conducting interviews that would come at the end of each video session. Those interviews often went on for more than an hour, but due to the time constraints of the study, only about 20 minutes of each interview has ever been seen. As a way of celebrating the...

Ten years ago we were working hard on creating the study that became Behold Your God: Rethinking God Biblically. Part of that work included conducting interviews that would come at the end of each video session. Those interviews often went on for more than an hour, but due to the time constraints of the study, only about 20 minutes of each interview has ever been seen. As a way of celebrating the...

Is it necessary for the New Testament Christian to observe and obey the totality of God’s Law? In one sense, the answer is clearly “YES!” But upon closer inspection, the answer requires more nuance. To answer the question, we must first define what we mean by law. Throughout Scripture, the word is used to describe the entire Old Testament, the Torah, the rules laid out by God, or the 10 Commandmen...

Last week John Snyder and Steve Crampton began discussing how a New Testament Christian should approach God’s moral law (the 10 Commandments). For help, they are using Ernie Reisinger’s book The Law and the Gospel. In his book, Reisinger gives us seven principles. John and Steve added a few of their own to make it an even 10. These principles are not laws in themselves. We are not adding to God’s...

It has taken us some time, but our discussion of the Gospel and the Law has finally gotten around to discussing the Law. This week, Dr. John Snyder and Steve Crampton take a look at the first table of the 10 Commandments. They also take a look at a historic, Baptist catechism and John’s initial hesitation to recommending it to the church he and Steve shepherd. The Grace of Law: A Study of Puritan...

This week John Snyder and Steve Crampton continue gaining help from John Calvin through his writings on the law. Just a reminder, we are not spending two episodes highlighting Calvin’s quotes because we idolize his words. We do, however agree with Ernie Reisinger that these particular quotes, along with much of Calvin’s writings, are clear and very helpful. The quotes we are focusing on this week...

Scripture often draws a sharp contrast between the ministry of Moses in the Old Covenant and Christ in the New Covenant. Hebrews says the New Covenant in Christ is so glorious the Old Covenant has no glory in comparison. John, in his gospel, says truth and grace are realized and embodied in Jesus Christ. Reading these without careful attention can lead one to believe the Old and New Covenants in o...

The way we approach an object reveals what we think of it. Consider a child approaching a plate at dinner filled with broccoli versus that same child approaching a plate with dessert on it. So how do we approach the law of God? Or, to ask a more important question: how does God want us to approach His law?   The first step to answering that question is to realize that the moral law is a reflection...

In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve were given one rule to follow. Between their exile from Eden and the days of Moses, what law did they have to obey? Careful readings of Scripture reveal they had the same moral law of God that was codified in the 10 Commandments. John Snyder and Steve Crampton spent some time on this reality last week. This week builds upon that reality by focusing on the fact t...

Without a biblical grasp of the law and the gospel, we cannot understand the true magnitude of what Jesus Christ has done for us on the cross. By minimizing the law, we minimize the grace and mercy that must be poured upon sinners to reconcile us to God. With that in mind, Dr. John Snyder and Steve Crampton spend this episode discussing the nature of the law before the giving of the 10 commandment...