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Articles by Sam Storms
10 Things You Should Know about Original Sin
Slideshows Updated Aug 19, 2026 : Follow topic Follow this topic Log in to your existing account or sign up today! Follow author Follow this author Log in to your existing account or sign up today! Log in to your existing account or sign up today! Original sin sounds so archaic, so pessimistic, so grimly medieval. For heaven’s sake, this is the era of the computer and the space shuttle.
10 Things You Should Know about Original Sin
Original sin sounds so archaic, so pessimistic, so grimly medieval. For heaven’s sake, this is the era of the computer and the space shuttle. And haven’t the most learned psychologists and sociologists assured us that people are by nature good, having been turned to their evil ways not by some inner instinct but through the influence of a deviant culture and sub-standard education? These questions indicate how important it is for us to understand the biblical notion of original sin.
10 Things You Should Know about Original Sin
Original sin sounds so archaic, so pessimistic, so grimly medieval. For heaven’s sake, this is the era of the computer and the space shuttle. And haven’t the most learned psychologists and sociologists assured us that people are by nature good, having been turned to their evil ways not by some inner instinct but through the influence of a deviant culture and sub-standard education? These questions indicate how important it is for us to understand the biblical notion of original sin.
A Complementarian Case for Women as Pastors - Part One
By Sam Storms The evangelical world has been abuzz over whether or not it is biblical for a woman to be called a pastor. The issue is once again sparking considerable discussion on the internet and elsewhere.
Crossway+ Special: $5 Book of the Month (May 2026)
Book of the Month The $5 Book of the Month is an exclusive promotion for Crossway+ members. Each month three hand-picked books are available at $5, $10, and $15 price tiers—all greatly discounted and available for one week only. Free shipping is available on orders of $30 or more to the contiguous United States.
10 Things Christians Should Know about Marijuana
I need to make a confession right up front. I’ve never smoked marijuana. I’ve never been drunk with alcohol. In fact, I’ve never used an illicit drug of any sort. I mention this because I’m quite sure that some will object to what I say in this article by insisting that I have no right to speak about an experience in which I’ve never personally indulged. I think that’s ridiculous.
If I’m Saved by Grace, Why Fight Sin?
Grace and Sin Several years ago, I struck up a conversation with my taxi driver on the way home from the airport. He was a nice man and a committed Muslim. When he found out I was a pastor, he was eager to talk about our different faiths, and he shared one of his major objections to Christianity: “You believe God will forgive you no matter what you do,” he said, “and therefore, you’ll live however you want.” He was convinced that abundant grace must lead to abundant sin. We know he was mistaken.
6 Ways Predestination Is an Outworking of God’s Love
God’s Spiritual Family Predestination is that act in eternity past in which God ordained or decreed that those he had set his steadfast love on would inherit eternal life. So predestination refers to an action taken by God before the world existed. It points to his eternal, pre-temporal decree of what he would bring to pass in time, in history (see also John 10:14–16, 24–30; Acts 13:44–48; 2 Thess.
Charismatic Land Mines Charismatic Land Mines - Part Three
This is the third article in my series titled, Identifying and Responding to Theological Bombs that Threaten the Integrity of our Movement. In Parts One and Two we looked at the problem of over-realized eschatology and triumphalism. Today we look at what J. I. Packer calls, Super Supernaturalism Super-Supernaturalism No one has explained this feature of some in the charismatic world better than J. I. Packer.
Charismatic Land Mines - Part Two
The sub-title to this lengthy series of articles is: Identifying and Responding to Theological Bombs that Threaten the Integrity of our Movement As energetic as I am in refuting the barrage of criticisms launched at the Pentecostal-Charismatic movement, I must admit that in recent days a number of objections have more than a little cogency. I’m not talking about the instances of either sexual or monetary misconduct among previously high-profile pastors and leaders.
Charismatic Land Mines - Part One
The sub-title to this lengthy series of articles is: Identifying and Responding to Theological Bombs that Threaten the Integrity of our Movement As energetic as I am in refuting the barrage of criticisms launched at the Pentecostal-Charismatic movement, I must admit that in recent days a number of objections have more than a little cogency. I’m not talking about the instances of either sexual or monetary misconduct among previously high-profile pastors and leaders.
Happy 76th Birthday, Joni Eareckson Tada!
[In case you missed it, Joni Eareckson Tada turned 76 a few weeks ago. Marvin Olasky interviewed her, the manuscript of which is below. She is one of my heroes of the faith, and I know you will be blessed by her story.] From 2007 to 2019 I interviewed 200 prominent Christians in front of student audiences. My favorite all-time guest was Joni Eareckson Tada in 2012. Today CT is beginning a profile series named after Eugene Peterson’s classic book about discipleship.
Unraveling the Rapture Part Two
[What follows is the second and final installment of a two-part series on the subject of the Rapture.] 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 What exactly will happen when Christ returns at the end of the age? For that, we turn to 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 13 But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.
Unraveling the Rapture - Part One
[What follows is the first part of a two-part series on the subject of the Rapture.] After Sept. 23 and 24 came and went without the rapture that he had predicted, South African Pastor Joshua Mhlakela took a few days to regroup. Then he doubled down, telling his followers to simply add 13 days to account for the Julian calendar. In case you’re keeping track, the new dates are Oct. 6 and 7.
“Sermon-ettes” breed “Christian-ettes”
I recently read where Ed Young, pastor of Fellowship Church near the DFW airport, has argued that we who preach are doing it far too long. He wrote: “The first service I preached 36 minutes. Way too long. The second service I did it in 20 mins and 43 seconds,” he said. “And guess what? The second message, the 20-minute message, was better than the 36-minute message.” The shorter message may have been better due to the topic or text on which the sermon was based.
What did Paul Mean when He said We Were Dead in our Sins?
There are few statements in the New Testament that sound more contrary to our experience than what Paul says in Ephesians 2:1-3. He says that all of us were “dead” in our trespasses and sins. And by “all” Paul means all. In a fashion quite similar to what we find in Romans 1-3, Paul’s description of the sinful condition of humanity extends to everyone. No one is excluded.
8 Myths of Spiritual Gifts
When I wrote my first book on spiritual gifts (The Beginner’s Guide) I identified no fewer than eight myths that people believe about the nature and operation of the charismata. I was recently interviewed by a program on Moody Radio where these myths were brought up once again. So, many of you may have already encountered these and know how to refute them. For the rest of you, I thought it might be helpful to address them once again.
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma > Enjoying God
[This past Friday, September 12, 2025, The Gospel Coalition posted my article on enjoying God. Here it is.] Few people struggle to understand what it means to fear God or to obey God or to love, honor, and worship God. But to speak of enjoying God strikes many as flippant, perhaps even irreverent. What does God’s Word say about this? Consider David’s exhortation in Psalm 37:4 that we should “delight” ourselves “in the Lord, and he will give” us “the desires of our heart” (see also Deut.
My New Book on Worship is Released Today!
The title to my new book is Understanding Worship: Biblical Foundations for Delighting in and Feasting on God (Zondervan, 340 pages). This is the fourth book that I refer to as my Understanding series (Understanding Spiritual Gifts, Understanding Spiritual Warfare, and Understanding Prayer preceding it), all of which are available on Amazon and in Christian bookstores. Here are the Contents of the book. I hope you can see that I tried to address virtually every topic on the subject of worship.
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma > Just do it!
“At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison – that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak” (Col. 4:3-4). Now, wait just a minute. We all agree that God loves lost souls and wants them to hear the gospel of salvation in his Son. So why does he suspend the opening of an evangelistic door to them on the prayers of the Colossians?
"Before" (Colossians 1:21)
I don't know who it was that first conceived the idea, but one of the more durable and effective advertising schemes is the "before" and "after." I can remember as a young boy turning to the back page of my Superman comic book only to find myself looking at the less than flattering, black and white, picture of a pathetically scrawny, virtually emaciated man, under which was written one word: "Before." On the other side of the page was the impressive, color portrait of a smiling, robust,...
A Response to the Words of Lisa Bickle Stribling
Most of you are by now aware of two messages recently delivered by Lisa Bickle Stribling. If you haven’t seen them, they are available on numerous public websites and podcasts. My wife and I have known Lisa and her husband, Ray, for many years. We greatly appreciate the work they have done in ministering to the homeless, the poor, and especially to recovering addicts. That being said, I was deeply disappointed in what she said at Hope City Church in Kansas City.
Could Jesus have Sinned?
I “know” sin. I say this not because I can define sin, although I can. I say this not because I can identify sin when I see it, although I can also do that. I say it because I am a sinner. I “know” sin because I commit it, sadly, on a daily basis. My acquaintance with sin, therefore, does not come from associating with others who transgress or from reading a book on Hamartiology (the technical, theological term for the study of Sin).
Why Does God Allow Suffering?
Suffering Points Us to God The question is, Why does God even allow suffering? What hope do we as Christians have in a world that is filled with so much tragedy and unspeakable suffering? I think the best answer to any question that begins with “Why did God . . . ?” is “For his glory.” Now, that’s not meant to minimize the pain and the anguish and oftentimes even the despair that suffering can bring to bear on our hearts.
Glorifying Christ Every Way: Remembering J. I. Packer
A Humble Servant On the very day that Crossway invited me to share a reminiscence of J. I. Packer on the fifth anniversary of his passing, I had occasion to remember the event that began Packer’s lifelong influence on me. It is appropriate for me to share this convergence because there is an important way in which my own story is also the story of many thousands of people.
Was the Apostle Paul “Crazy?”
“For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you” (2 Corinthians 5:13) There’s hardly anything more painful and disheartening than being misunderstood. I can’t begin to imagine what Jesus must have felt each time the religious leaders twisted his words into something he never intended or misinterpreted his motives or impugned his character, attributing to him ideas or aims foreign to his heart.
Epistles of Christ
Salvation and our relationship to the Lord are described in any number of ways in the New Testament, using a variety of images, metaphors, and analogies. Jesus is the Good Shepherd and we are the sheep. God is the giver of life and we are born again. He is the compassionate Father and we are adopted. God is the righteous judge and we are justified. The Spirit is an indwelling presence and we are his temple, and the list could go on without end.
Cinderella No More!
“And it is God who establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us, and who has also put his seal on us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee” (2 Cor. 1:21-22). Theologian Alister McGrath once identified the Holy Spirit as “the Cinderella of the Trinity. The other two sisters,” he said, “may have gone to the theological ball; the Holy Spirit got left behind every time” (Christian Theology, 240).
If Divine Election is Unconditional, how can God be Loving?
In the never-ending debate between Calvinists and Arminians on the subject of divine election, we often hear that whereas it may not be unjust of God not to save all, it is surely unloving of him at least not to try. If God is love, the Arminian argues, then he must manifest that love equally and universally. This objection has been articulated by Normal Geisler in the form of an illustration, and it is in that form that I will address it. Here is the illustration.
What Makes God Sing?
[This article was first published by www.crossway.org/articles on Wednesday, June 11, 2025] The steadfast love that God has for us is not only seen in the gift he gave to us of his Son, by whom we are justified and are being sanctified, but also revealed in the passion in his heart, which is so intense he cannot help but break forth in joyful singing!1 Zephaniah 3:17 tells us that “the Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will...
A Response to Michael Heiser on the Origin and Nature of Demons
I have learned much from Michael Heiser, especially from his book, The Unseen Realm. Sadly, he passed away on February 20, 2023.
Why Does Jesus Pray? And What Can We Learn From the Way He Prays?
There’s something extraordinarily mysterious about the prayer life of Jesus. Although fully human (John 1:14), Jesus is simultaneously the second person of the triune Godhead. He is in perfect fellowship with the Father and the Spirit. What they know and do, he knows and does. So, why then does he so often pray to the Father? What need is there for this? We know that Jesus came to accomplish the Father’s will (John 5:30; 6:38–40) and always does what the Father desires and never sins.
Why Would God Love Me When He Knows How Sinful I Am?
God’s Great Love Why would God ever love me, knowing how sinful I am? Well, of course, that’s what makes the love of God so astounding—it is not repelled by our sins or our failures. We read in Psalm 103 that it’s precisely because God knows that we are frail and we are made of dust that he chooses to have compassion on us and love us like a father loves.
Before you Convert to Roman Catholicism (2)
This is part two of my series of articles on Roman Catholicism. I wrote this to challenge those who are thinking about converting to the RCC. We pick it up with questions 5-10. (5) I assume you also now believe that “justification entails the sanctification of his whole being” (CC, 1995).
A Stunning, Stupid, Sinful Thing to Say
Delman Coates, the senior pastor of Mt. Ennon Baptist Church, in Clinton, Maryland, recently delivered a sermon in which he confidently declared that premarital sex is perfectly permissible.
Union with Christ Is at the Heart of Reformation Theology
Union with Christ When the Puritan allegorist John Bunyan (1628–1688) finally discovered spiritual peace, he described the awakening as a dramatic release from bondage: “Now did my chains fall off my legs indeed; I was loosened from my afflictions and irons. . . .
A Grateful but Cautionary Word about N. T. Wright
I strongly suspect that this article will strike many of you in differing ways. Some of you have been profoundly influenced theologically by N. T. Wright. Your response to what I will say may be quite negative. Others who have been confused and bothered by some of the things Wright has written will applaud my concerns. In either case, I only ask that you give my comments a fair hearing.
My New Book, Understanding Prayer is Available for Purchase (May 6)
My new book, Understanding Prayer: Biblical Foundations and Practical Guidance for Seeking God (Zondervan, 352 pages) will be available for purchase on Tuesday, May 6. Here is a description of it from the publisher. In Understanding Prayer, author, pastor, and scholar Sam Storms unpacks the meaning and power of prayer through a close reading of Scripture with special focus on the life and ministry of Jesus, the apostle Paul, and James.
How is the next Pope selected?
With the passing of Pope Francis, the Roman Catholic Church is tasked with the selection of his successor. What follows is a short explanation of the process. You’ve probably heard a lot about something called the “Conclave,” which literally means “with a key”. It refers to the placing of the electors in a locked room and refusing to release them until they have chosen someone as Pope.
Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead!
It’s one thing to affirm that God could or even did raise Jesus from the dead. It’s another thing to answer the question: So what? What difference does it make? In a world caught up in the swirl of economic uncertainty and subject to the madness of global terrorism, is it really all that important? Yes, it is.
C. S. Lewis on Glorification
Of all that C. S. Lewis wrote, one of my favorites is his essay, “The Weight of Glory.” I’m especially interested in what Lewis says in it about the experience of what we refer to as glorification. Glorification is the truth found all through the NT that when Christ returns he will, by the power of the Holy Spirit, utterly eradicate sinful, fallen flesh from us and wholly and completely transform us into the likeness of Jesus himself.
Overcoming Your Greatest Fear
When people are asked what they fear most in life, many say it is the prospect of standing in front of an audience and delivering a speech, be it ever so brief. They are afraid of misspeaking and incurring the ridicule of their peers. They dread the prospect of being laughed at for making some inadvertent grammatical error. Or perhaps some suffer from a speech impediment, such as stuttering. Others would say that they are embarrassed by their physical appearance.
What Place do our Emotions/Affections have When We Worship?
That holy affections are the essence of true spirituality can be seen from what God has commanded concerning our public worship. Jonathan Edwards argues that virtually all external expressions of worship “can be of no further use, than as they have some tendency to affect our own hearts, or the hearts of others” (115). Consider, for example, the singing of praises to God, which seem “to be appointed wholly to excite and express religious affections.
How Great is the Love of God!
In early February this year, Crossway published my book, The Steadfast Love of the Lord: Experiencing the Life-Changing Power of God’s Unchanging Affection. Whenever I write a book, I find myself deluded into thinking that the last word has been said about the topic. Never before has this insanely silly thought been brought to my attention as it was today.
Do Your Sunday Songs Pass the Test? A Response to Brandon Ryan
On March 9, 2025, Brandon Ryan posted an article at TGC’s website that challenged us to carefully examine the biblical fidelity of the songs we sing on Sunday. I found myself in large agreement with him, except for the one song he chose to critique.
The Spiritual Gift of Prophecy and the Sufficiency of Scripture
I think it can be reasonably asserted that the primary objection of the cessationist to the continuationist notion of the spiritual gift of prophecy is that the latter, if still operative in the church, would require that all revelations that form the basis of any prophetic utterance must be included in the canon of Scripture. Simply put, the cessationist insists that, if prophetic revelation is still being supplied to Christians by the Spirit, the canon must remain open.
4 Ways Paul Prayed for You to Be Strengthened
For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge,...
10 Things We Get Wrong About the Love of God
[These observations are taken from my new book, The Steadfast Love of the Lord: Experiencing the Life-Changing Power of God’s Unchanging Affection (Crossway, 2025). First posted at www.crossway.org on February 03, 2025. Number One: God’s love is not something God owes us. While it is true that God is love (1 John 4:16), this does not mean he is obligated to express that love to anyone, much less toward hell-deserving sinners like you and me.
Sam Storms Answers Tough Questions About God’s Love
Sam Storms on the Love of God Although Christians affirm that “God is love,” many have questions about what God’s love looks like or about how it is offered and to whom. In this video, Dr. Sam Storms takes on a number of difficult questions about what the Bible describes as the steadfast love of the Lord. Questions Addressed in the Video Could God still love me after I’ve committed a terrible sin? Does God’s love ever change? Is God’s love unconditional? Does God love everyone, even the wicked?
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