Who Is On Trial? Living With Eyes on the Courtroom of Heaven

This Sunday, in Acts 5:12-42, we looked at how Peter flipped the script on the chief priests: The apostles stood in the courtroom as witnesses, not defendants. It was the chief priests, who thought they were the judges) who were on trial.

Even when the powers of this world judge the Church, it is the Church that stands as witness to the King and Judge in heaven. When the world around us accuses Christ’s people, it is evidence in the courtroom of heaven against them, even as they accuse us.

We considered what this looks like for Christians today. In our country and culture that comes mostly with respect to the Scripture’s stand against the sexual revolution. Here are a few resources that might help you both stand firm and witness if you find yourself subjected to our culture’s judgment in this realm.

Is Christianity against freedom and equality? This is the question Tom Holland sought to answer when he began writing the book Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind. He assumed that he would find that ancient Greece and Rome provided an ideal, free, equal societies that Christianity ruined. Instead, he found that Christianity provided the bedrock beliefs of freedom and equality that shaped the modern mind and our culture cherish.
- Listen to an interview with the author here.

How did we get here? How is it that, in one generation, our culture has gone from thinking that Christians are the boring good guys to the bigoted bad guys? How is it that, in the same amount of time, the statement, “I’m a woman trapped in a man’s body,” has gone from incoherent, to a punch line, to an executive order? That’s the question Carl Trueman set out to answer in his recent book The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self. He traces out several historical and cultural trends that have merged to produce this huge cultural shift at such a rapid pace.
- Listen to an author interview here.
- Listen to an 8-part lecture series outlining the book here.

How do we live as our culture’s bad guys? As our culture continues to shift in seeing Christians as opponents of freedom, equality, and flourishing, how do we respond? Stephen McAlpine asks the question, “In our post-Christian culture, how do we offer the gospel to those around us who view it as not only wrong but possibly dangerous?”
- Check out the book here: Being The Bad Guys

Is God Anti-Gay? As our culture increasingly sees Christianity as oppressive and regressive towards the LGBTQ+ community, Sam Allberry asks if Christianity offers them anything good. As a man who experiences same-sex attraction and still holds to orthodox doctrine and practice, Allberry has some helpful things to say. At under 100 pages, this short read doesn’t fully answer every question, but is a solid introduction to the topic.

Is the Bible Good for Women? Some think that the Bible chains up and restricts women… that it is not good for them. Wendy Alsup asks whether Christianity is repressive, or whether it does offer good news for them. She looks at, “God s grand storyline and specific biblical passages, Alsup gives practical, accessible tools for understanding the noble ways God speaks to and about women in its pages and the dignity He places on His daughters.”
- Listen to an author interview.