This question usually arises when we consider using undesirable actions or approaches to work toward noble or legitimate ends.
Big Questions
Our panel of contributors replies to questions from readers on topics like these: ethics, relationships, missional living, faith formation, vocation/calling, digital life, church/Bible/doctrine, and stewardship. Got a question you’d like answered?
Who’s responsible for my faith growth?
How can I tell if I am emotionally healthy?
If God is at work in our neighborhoods, perhaps we should be too.
As churches reopen after the pandemic, it’s been encouraging that some of the technological steps taken to make worship or meetings more accessible are planned to continue.
What do confessing members and officebearers who have previously signed the Covenant for Officebearers do when the Christian Reformed Church changes its confessions, and they no longer agree with the beliefs in the confessions?
When you love God and want to follow God faithfully, you are likely to ask if God might be calling you to be a pastor, missionary, or teacher.
People often say that we should read the Bible to know what God is saying. How do we read the Bible to make decisions that don’t necessarily have a moral answer?
We know that it’s wrong to physically harm people. But is it ever right to hurt people’s feelings for the sake of God’s truth? For instance, Jesus called the Pharisees a “brood of vipers.”
At just about every church leadership event, the first question attendees ask of one another is “How big is your church?”
My husband and I can’t agree on whether we should be cremated or not. Is there any biblical instruction for this?
Leaders in many Christian churches are embracing Enneagram personality typing. I would be very glad to have solidly Reformed feedback on this practice.
How do I live out my vocation when God doesn’t seem to be opening doors for me to do what I feel called to do?
Are there different standards of belief for officebearers and confessing members of the Christian Reformed Church?
As Reformed Christians we know that everything is being redeemed by God—even the giant, sometimes dark and sinister hole we call the internet.
Is Earth sacred? While we may have an obligation to be stewards of creation, is there a danger for Christians of falling into nature worship given some of the language used by those who refer to nature as “sacred”?
Idolatry is indeed a threat—a temptation that Christians ought to resist through the Spirit’s leading.
When we are surveyed, we feel like a number about to be made into a statistic, and often we are.
I was a child of Dutch immigrants in the 1950s, and my adult children are now asking more details about their grandparents, of whom they all have wonderful impressions.
Our Reformed tradition emphasizes a lot of head knowledge when it comes to growing in our faith.
I recently met some friends from church for coffee. They used a cash app to pay and spoke about something called cryptocurrency. Should Christians be adopting these modern financial innovations?
What’s the status of a congregational meeting and a congregational vote—especially when it comes to extending a call to a pastor?
The Bible cautions us not to think more highly of ourselves than we ought.
Prayer is a foundational practice for those seeking to join the Spirit on God’s mission.