1) Prepare Your Public Prayers
If you are in any form of spiritual leadership, work at your public prayers. It does not matter whether the form of spiritual leadership you exercise is the teaching of a Sunday school class, pastoral ministry, small-group evangelism, or anything else: if at any point you pray in public as a leader, then work at your public prayers.
I found this advice really helpful. I have often felt like a hypocrite for thinking it is important that my public prayers be accurate and well-spoken.
2) Learning From a Lesbian Visitor to Your Church
My friend said the conversation is usually over once the caller realizes the church holds to traditional teaching regarding sexuality. He told me he always shakes his head and thinks, Who do we think we are, that we can come to God and tell Him what we will and will not change?
You and I are like the lesbian caller.
3) Some Thoughts on Pope Francis
It’s another week and thus another interview with Pope Francis. This one, I’m sorry to say, is more than just confusing. It’s a theological wreck.
4) 10 Silly Things Christians Say
Here’s what I am learning: It is my first instinct to jump all over this stuff, to sneer and snicker, to correct and nitpick. I have an odd, inflated sense of justice when it comes to these silly, stupid phrases. Even when I’m not correcting people, I’m thinking I really ought to. But this impulse says more about me than them. It is not the Spirit of Christ to ambush my brothers and sisters with smug nitpickery. It is not the way of Jesus for Christians to mock God’s children for their affectations, to bite, to self-righteously manage, or to otherwise shame. I am not the Holy Spirit of social media.
I thought I was the wittiest Calvinist on the block. Until I followed Jared Wilson.
5) John MacArthur and Strange Fire
It’s the elephant in the room, isn’t it? We can’t all be right and we can’t both be right. Sooner or later we have to have a discussion about charismatic (continuationist) theology and whether or not the miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit remain in operation in the church today (or, if you prefer, about cessationist theology and whether or not the miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit have ceased in the church today). We have wanted to make sure New Calvinism is large enough for both, that it will not fracture along this particular line, and this has delayed the conversation. But at some point we just have to talk about it.
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Finally, Watch this:
Killing Jesus is another account that will be here for a while and then disappear and be forgotten. In the meantime, it will take Jesus out of the realm of fantasy and place him squarely in history, but even as it does that, it will neglect to tell why his life, his crucifixion, his resurrection are of eternal significance, a matter of his life and death and our own.
Woopedy doo. An attempt to “historicize” Jesus as a non-religious figure. Coming from the Religious Right.”
2) As Lambs in the Midst of Wolves
Over the weekend, enemies of Christ made themselves apparent by attacking his followers. One of the attacks was carried out by the Islamist terrorist group Al-Shabaab, in a Nairobi mall. The attackers killed at least 62 people, injuring 175. Witnesses say they let Muslims go free before they began shooting people. The other attack occurred at the hands of two suicide bombers in a Pakistani church of 500. 81 were killed, and 120 are wounded. The terrorist group that claimed responsibility for the attack is a “splinter group” of the Pakistani Taliban.
How are believers supposed to respond to such violent opposition? From 1 Peter, let me suggest six godly reactions.
3) Isaiah’s Upcoming Mission Trip
Isaiah is probably the only seven-year-old who loves to watch sermons on his iPad. One of his favorites is the John Piper video podcast. He’ll pull them up all by himself and just sit there and watch them over and over again. One day I asked him why he liked to watch sermons so much, and he just smiled and said “happy.”
4) Can I Tell You About My Friend Jesus?
Here are the tweets about my friend Jesus. I hope he is your friend too.
1) “You Can’t Use the Bible to Prove the Bible” . . . And Other Stupid Statements
In the end, the story of Christ has plenty of independent documentation, all of must prove or evidence the rest. So in this sense, we must use the Bible to prove the Bible or else we are not being historians, but religious zealots, fighting to keep hold of our unbelief through stupid statements.
2) Is It Good News That Cohabitation Rates Are Stalling?
“Another possibility is that cohabitation has become so common and socially accepted that it now is following the same pattern as marriage,” Shah writes. Those who wish to avoid commitments are now “shying away from cohabitation the same way they might avoid marriage.”
3) Why Men Have Stopped Singing in Church
And so the church has returned to the 14th century. Worshippers stand mute as professional-caliber musicians play complex instruments, sung in an obscure language. Martin Luther is turning over in his grave.
A Memphis-area mother is angry with her daughter’s elementary school after a teacher told her 10-year-old she could not have God as the subject of her class assignment to write about her idol.
5) Challies Best Commentary Series
Series Introduction: I live in a small house. I work in a small office in a small church. For those reasons and others I will never have a huge library. When I add a book I almost always remove a book, a practice that allows me to focus on quality over quantity. Over the past couple of years I have focused on building a collection of commentaries that will include only the best volumes on each book of the Bible.
Well, I’m married.
Since I already posted one “Sola Wednesday” listing my top 5 read posts so far of 2013, I figured I should follow up with 5 of the least read posts so far. Have you read them all?
1) They Were the Best of Times, They Were the Worst of Times
My first post. The one that started it all.
My Bible Study series was largely left unread. Here is the final post in the series – have you read them all?
3) From the Vault: Thomas Cranmer
I’ve really been enjoying discovering new dead guys to post on the blog. This might be my favorite so far.
I wrote a three-part series on the purpose behind studying the original Biblical languages. I really enjoyed writing this up for people to read!
Sometimes I feel most in communion with God when I write, rather than speak, my prayers to Him.