If complex illness is like a long investigation, the church should be the quiet task force that keeps showing up, praying, cooking, driving, contributing, and hoping when hope feels heavy. We cannot promise outcomes. But we can embody the presence of the One who can, the crucified and risen Lord who knows our frame, remembers... Continue Reading

Whatever your initial emotional reaction to Radical, the guilt of not living up to its vision of “what it means to be radically abandoned to Christ” may be what haunts most readers now…[Platt’s] vision of discipleship is unsustainable for the average person and minimizes the fact that God normatively uses very ordinary means to grow... Continue Reading

Pray for owners or managers to have wisdom, for good planning and success, for humility to see where they are failing in leadership and relationships. This is very much needed for all of us where we work. Let’s do the right thing and pray for management.   In Psalm 20, a group of people, either... Continue Reading

When you learn to find answers within the text itself, Bible study becomes much more satisfying. Instead of fostering dependence on experts, you develop confidence that God’s Word is accessible to you as an ordinary reader.   I used to panic when I hit a confusing Bible verse. My instinct was to immediately grab a... Continue Reading

If you are a regenerate Christian…think about this amazing truth: everything you are to do is to be imitated by all the people in the world….All of this should make us who are, by grace, in Christ, humble, grateful, prayerful, and desirous of being models of the love and mercy of Jesus and His gospel... Continue Reading

Is your faith alive? I’m not talking about Christianized comfort here. The kind of faith that bleeds, marches, cries, and believes anyway. Because if it is real and if God has lit that flame in you, then it will never go out. Not even under pain, weakness, or physical death. When your lungs collapse and... Continue Reading

What puts all men on equal footing in relation to God so that they are without excuse, is the fact creation testifies to God and fits with the eternity in the heart. By this, creation’s testimony can be understood as not only a testimony to God’s existence but also as revealing something of the nature... Continue Reading

The church has been waiting patiently for the results of the last “new” approach to textual criticism for nearly a decade, and now it seems that she will have to wait even longer.    A “new” approach to textual criticism was popularly announced in 2017 with a book by Tommy Wasserman and Peter J. Gurry... Continue Reading

Instead of ‘they feared the Lord, BUT they also…’, his Spirit yearns for  ‘they feared the Lord, AND they…’ Double-minded becomes single-minded; half-hearted becomes whole-hearted.…they feared the Lord, AND they lived for him.’   Syncretism. A big word that simply means blending beliefs, mixing them into something new. It sounds very modern: choose your own... Continue Reading

Because God has promised to give his Spirit, we can pray with shameless, persistent, urgent impudence. The specifics of our prayers will involve God’s glory and worship, the advancement of his kingdom, our temporal and spiritual needs, our sins and relationships, and our protection from evil.   When we think of the Lord’s Prayer, we... Continue Reading