What I Believe

I’m not sure there’s a label that captures everything I believe neatly, and honestly, I’ve made peace with that. Theology is too rich and the Bible is too deep to flatten into a bumper sticker. What I can tell you is where I stand, what has shaped me, and how I read Scripture, and I’ll let you draw your own conclusions from there.

Everything starts here.

I believe the Bible is the inspired, inerrant, and eternally authoritative Word of God. That means I come to the text with one foundational conviction: Scripture interprets Scripture. I’m not looking for what a passage means to me, I’m looking for what it meant to its original audience and what God intended to communicate through its human author. From there, we can talk about application, but meaning comes first.

I read the Bible verse by verse, book by book, and in context. I believe every text has one correct meaning rooted in authorial intent, and that careful observation and interpretation always precede application. I tend to get a little twitchy when a passage gets spiritualized into something the author never intended, or when a verse gets lifted out of context to say something that sounds encouraging but isn’t actually there.

This is a journey I’ve been on for several years now, and it has changed the way I read, the way I teach, and honestly, the way I worship.

On Scripture The Bible is the inspired, infallible, and authoritative Word of God. It is the final standard for truth and life, and it is sufficient. I hold to Sola Scriptura without apology.

On God I believe in one God, eternally existing in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I am captivated by His attributes, particularly His sovereignty, holiness, and steadfast love, and I believe His sovereign purposes cannot be thwarted.

On Salvation I hold to the doctrines of grace. Yes, I’m a TULIP girl. I believe salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, and that God is sovereign in salvation from beginning to end. Sola Gratia. Sola Fide. Solus Christus.

On Jesus I believe in the sinless life, substitutionary death, bodily resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ. He is the only Savior and the only Mediator between God and man. He is coming back.

On the Church and Spiritual Gifts I am a cessationist. I believe the sign gifts, tongues, prophecy, and miraculous healing as described in the New Testament, ceased with the closing of the apostolic age and the completion of the canon of Scripture. The Word of God is sufficient.

On Eschatology My eschatology is best described as progressive dispensationalist, a framework that takes seriously the biblical distinctions between Israel and the church while also recognizing the already/not yet inauguration of the kingdom of God in Christ.

On Biblical Womanhood I believe God created male and female distinctly and purposefully, that marriage is the union of one man and one woman, and that the Bible’s vision for womanhood is not a limitation but a gift. I write primarily for women because I believe women teaching and encouraging women is a biblical model I want to take seriously.

I didn’t arrive at these convictions in a vacuum, and the teachers who have shaped me most are not a monolith. If you put all of these men in a room together, they would not agree on everything. There would be lively discussion, probably some healthy pushback, and more than a few points of genuine tension. But here’s what I believe they share: a commitment to Scripture as the final authority, and the humility to follow it even when it costs them something. R.C. Sproul and John MacArthur said something to this effect during a panel discussion once, and it has stuck with me. Men who love the Word that much will ultimately point each other back to it, and if shown from Scripture that they’re wrong, they’ll admit it. That kind of posture is what I’m looking for in a teacher, and it’s the posture I want to bring to my own study and writing.

John Calvin. The man whose work underlies much of what I believe about the sovereignty of God and the doctrines of grace. You could say he started it.

Charles Spurgeon. The Prince of Preachers himself. His sermons are rich, pastoral, and Christ-saturated in a way that never gets old. He has a gift for making deep theology feel like good news, because it is.

R.C. Sproul. Nobody has made the holiness of God and Reformed theology more accessible without dumbing it down. The Holiness of God wrecked me in the best way.

John MacArthur. My go-to for expository preaching and a high view of Scripture. His commitment to the text, verse by verse, has deeply shaped how I read and teach.

Voddie Baucham.Clear, uncompromising, and unapologetically biblical on family, womanhood, and the sufficiency of Scripture.

Paul Washer. His preaching has a way of stripping away comfortable Christianity and pointing you back to the cross. Not always easy to listen to, but always worth it.

Costi Hinn. His story and his ministry have been a meaningful resource for thinking through the prosperity gospel and charismatic excess, which connects directly to my cessationist convictions.

Owen Strachan. A sharp, faithful voice on theology and culture, particularly on biblical manhood and womanhood. He takes the text seriously and isn’t afraid to say so.

Jonny Ardavanis. A newer voice in my reading life but one I appreciate for his faithfulness to the text and his pastoral clarity.

Here are a few places to start if you want to see how these convictions play out in my actual Bible study: