Big Dreams and Blue Jeans
Why Small Towns Still Matter
I realize that the people living in small towns today are not Jesus. However, small-town believers can still do BIG things for the kingdom because Jesus has sent the Spirit to empower them too. Our small-town church has reproduced churches locally and across the globe. We are doing it out of the view of many... Continue Reading
No Little Women
The introduction to Aimee Byrd's new book
This book is for the competent women who are seeking a better way, as well as for those of you who would like to become more competent, as God has called you to be. This book is also for pastors and elders who would like every member of their church to be well equipped in... Continue Reading
The Lost Word of Motivation
Knowing that at any given moment as you seek to obey, you are actually pleasing God changes our motivation, does it not?
Some people are hard to please, always critical, pointing out the flaw. Maybe you think of God like that—Like someone who has asked for an obscure out of print book as a present, that you can’t find anywhere on the web, and you have searched high and low in second-hand bookshops—you know they will be... Continue Reading
Evangelical Pastor Theologians Outline Christian Vision of Sexuality
People in our culture need to hear from the church an overarching “positive, compelling vision of God’s plan for sexuality"
To win hearts and minds, our task is “not simply to persuade minds but also imaginations” by showing not just the truth, but also the beauty of the Christian vision. And even as a self-described “low-church, free-church evangelical,” Wilson urged a rediscovery of relevant church tradition, and bemoaned American evangelicalism’s tendencies towards “a way of... Continue Reading
The Children Are Still Listening
In an election deemed one of the nastiest in recent times, our children heard hateful things said about women.
In each iteration of one of the greatest Hollywood hits of a past generation, Agent 007 (James Bond) treats women as mere sexual objects. Our Hollywood entertainers and popular journalists have made totally banal a constant pornographic vision of sex. During the elections, Lady Gaga publicly offered free oral sex to any who voted for... Continue Reading
Seven Points on Spiritual Gifts (J. Bridges)
God gives all his people gifts to use for the service and enrichment of others.
“Gifts are sovereignly bestowed by God. You possess the gifts you have because the sovereign God of the universe wanted you to be that way. He ordained a plan for your life even before you were born, and He has gifted you specifically to carry out that plan. Never disparage your gift. If you do,... Continue Reading
More Mercy in Christ than Sin in Us
David understood, better than any, the multifaceted way in which God's grace worked in his life with regard to his ongoing battle with sin and his experience of a guilt-laden conscience.
Believers, as we struggle in our souls for nearness to God, a restored sense of His favor and delight and new manifestations of His presence and power, we must learn to cry out to God from the depths–acknowledging God’s holiness, our sin and rebellion, what our iniquities deserve and the great mercy of God in... Continue Reading
Welfare, Weber, And A Work Ethic
Being in favor of work is not merely a cultural or generational bias. Work is a creational good
From a biblical-theological perspective, “work” in the context of Genesis 2 may have a somewhat more specific sense, but the covenant of works has not yet been instituted. Certainly Adam was to cultivate the garden and to guard it as God’s prophet, priest, and king—a calling which Adam failed to fulfill thus plunging himself and... Continue Reading
The Story Of Redemption
A digest of some spiritually stimulating redemptive-historical meditations from Scripture.
The Tabernacle was the mobile dwelling place of God–a tent covered in skin. When Jesus came, the Apostle John tells us that “He tabernacled among us.” Jesus is the enfleshed, mobile dwelling place of God. In Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. Nothing serves to strengthen our faith so much as... Continue Reading
A Plea To Pastors: Don’t Cancel Church On Christmas
I hope it’s not too late to make you reconsider your decision to cancel church on Christmas.
I’m enough of a Puritan to think that December 25 is Sunday before it’s Christmas. It’s the Lord’s Day. It’s a resurrection morning. It’s the day on which Christians have gathered for 2,000 years to sing the Bible, preach the Bible, pray the Bible, and see the Bible in the sacraments. It’s the day of the... Continue Reading