Chalmers' Blog

Why Don’t Our Sermons Change People?

I was speaking with a friend yesterday. I sent him my sermon manuscript for some feedback as I’m preaching in a context that I’ve not spoken in before. He said something, in a wider conversation about preaching in general, that got me thinking…

“Sermons are often 90% information and 10% application. Yet pastors expect lives transformed after every message.”

That line has stayed with me.

Not because it is universally true. There are many faithful pastors preaching Christ week by week with clarity, warmth, and pastoral wisdom. But there is enough truth in the observation to make us uncomfortable.

The God Who Keeps His People; Assurance, Perseverance, and the Comfort of the Gospel

There are some theological questions that arrive in the study quietly, and there are others that arrive with tears. This is one of the latter.

Can a true Christian finally fall away and be lost forever?

For some, the question is deeply personal. A believer battles ongoing sin and wonders whether repeated failure has exhausted the patience of God. A parent grieves over a child who once professed faith but now rejects Christ entirely. A pastor watches someone once active in church life slowly drift into unbelief and asks, “What happened?”

And beneath all of it lies a deeper concern: how secure is the grace of God, really?

Head Knowledge Isn’t Enough: Why Knowing About Jesus Is Not the Same as Knowing Him

There is a subtle danger that lurks in conservative evangelical churches, particularly those that rightly value sound doctrine and serious Bible teaching. It is the danger of confusing theological knowledge with spiritual maturity.

Now, let us be clear from the outset: doctrine matters immensely. Truth matters. God has revealed himself in words, propositions, history, commands, promises, and doctrine. The Christian faith is not anti-intellectual. Loving God includes loving him with our minds. The church desperately needs Christians who think carefully, read deeply, and handle Scripture faithfully.

But Scripture also warns us that it is entirely possible to possess accurate theology while remaining spiritually immature, or even spiritually dead.

That is the uncomfortable force of James 2:19 “You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder!”

That verse should shake every one of us.

Saturday Snippets (May 2)

As well as reading a lot of books, I also read a ton of articles every week. Here are some of the articles that I’ve read recently and have found interesting, helpful, challenging and encouraging. I hope that they will be the same for you, my dear readers

Coheirs with Christ: The Staggering Privilege of Belonging to the Son

Few truths in the New Testament are more breathtaking, or more neglected, than the Christian’s identity as a coheir with Christ. The apostle Paul writes in Romans 8:17 “Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.”

Those words are easy to read quickly. But they deserve to slow us down. Christians are not merely forgiven criminals spared from judgement. We are not merely servants admitted into God’s kingdom. In Christ, believers are adopted into the very family of God and granted a share in the inheritance of the eternal Son himself.

Heaven, Earth Made New, and the Glory of Christ: Correcting Our Vision of Eternity

Few subjects stir both hope and confusion among Christians quite like heaven. We sing of it, long for it, and comfort one another with its promise, yet our understanding is often shaped as much by imagination, sentiment, or popular culture as by Scripture. As a result, many believers unknowingly carry misconceptions that, while sincere, can actually diminish the glory of what God has truly prepared.

If we are to eagerly anticipate what lies ahead, we must let the Bible, not caricature, shape our expectations. And when we do, we discover something far richer, more tangible, and more Christ-exalting than we might have imagined.

Saturday Snippets (April 18)

Where Was Jesus Between the Cross and the Resurrection? Why Jesus Didn’t Need to Go to Hell

There are few questions in Christian theology that generate as much confusion and curiosity as this one: Did Jesus go to hell between His death and resurrection?

For many, the idea seems familiar, sometimes even assumed. Some people may recall the phrase “He descended into hell” from the Apostles’ Creed, depending on their liturgical background. Others have heard sermons or teachings suggesting that Christ spent three days suffering in hell before rising again because the cross was insufficient.

But what does the Bible actually teach? And why does this question matter for how we understand the gospel?

Saturday Snippets (April 11)

Why God’s People Must Read God’s Word, Not Paraphrases

There is something profoundly simple, and yet profoundly neglected, at the heart of the Christian life – God speaks, and his people listen.

From the opening pages of Scripture to the life of the church in the New Testament, the people of God have always been marked by their relationship to the Word of God. We are not sustained by feelings, guided by impressions, or built up by human creativity. We live, as Jesus reminds us, “by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4).

And yet, in our day, there is a quiet but serious drift, not away from the idea of the Bible, but away from the Bible itself.