Tom Brennan
After six years establishing a church in rural Pennsylvania and sixteen years revitalizing an inner-city church in Chicago, in 2019 Tom Brennan accepted the call to pastor Bible Baptist Church. He and his lovely wife, Mandy, have been married since 1999. They have three children, Jack, Emma, and Sam. Pastor Brennan is happiest at home, surrounded by his family, with a cup of tea to hand and a large stack of books within easy reach. Failing that, he can be found hiking one of the many beautiful trails in Dubuque or slowly barbecuing something on his smoker.
In addition to pastoring, the Lord has given him an active writing ministry. Birthed in 2014, Brennan's Pen includes a blog, daily emails designed for men in ministry, and three books to date. You can find more about his writing by perusing his blog, concerningjesus.com, or his author website, brennanspen.com.
Grace and Truth
The beginning of Jesus' ministry is generally regarded as His baptism at the hands of John the Baptist. By the time Jesus stepped into his baptism line, John had built a truly massive ministry. (Matthew 3:5) The Lord had commissioned him to preach a message of forward looking repentance to…
Praised, Yet Awful: A Review of Philip Yancey’s What’s So Amazing About Grace?
In my discussion earlier in this series of Paul's seminal statement, Ye are not under the law, but under grace I mentioned Philip Yancey's influential book, "What's So Amazing About Grace?" I alluded to the fact that it, along with a few other original works and a whole bunch of…
How to Get Grace
Thus far in this blog series on grace we have examined what grace is, where it begins, how it ought to impact our treatment of one another, and how it becomes the atmosphere in which we grow. We have also examined some of the important doctrinal questions surrounding grace, namely…
The Destruction of Legalism
Note: by Joe Cassada Welcome to the fourth and final article in this series within a series. If I may, I’d like to preface this last post with a word of thanks to Tom Brennan for entrusting me with the important task of addressing a complicated issue – one that,…
The Detection of Legalism
This is the third in a four post mini-series on legalism set within the context of this series on grace. These are by Pastor Joe Cassada of the Solid Rock Baptist Church in Maryland Heights, Missouri. In the last two posts, I warned that two popular understandings of legalism will…
The Definition of Legalism
This is the second in a four post mini-series on legalism set within the context of this series on grace. These are by Pastor Joe Cassada of the Solid Rock Baptist Church in Maryland Heights, Missouri. Previously, I mentioned that two popular understandings of legalism fail to take the battle…
The Danger of Legalism
Note: In planning this blog series on grace I felt I wanted to cover the subject of legalism in some depth. I have asked my good friend, Pastor Joe Cassada, of the Solid Rock Baptist Church in Maryland Heights, Missouri, to address this topic for us. This is the first…
Under Grace
Note: This post deals with Paul's use of the phrase under grace in Romans 6. But I think to understand this post in context you should first read the post that deals with Paul's preceding phrase, not under the law. It can be found here. Romans 6:14-15For sin shall not…
Not Under Law
Romans 6:14-15For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace. What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid. We come now to one of the most critical and most critically misunderstood aspects…
An Atmosphere of Grace
In the last post we discussed Peter's wondrous turn of phrase: "growing in grace". I likened it to a plant that grows in the soil, and we discussed briefly being rooted in Christ and established in the faith. I want to return to Peter's primary thought today, and specifically to…
