Being Blessed by Blessing Others (Susannah Spurgeon)
“Our gracious Lord ministered to His suffering child in the most effectual manner, when He graciously led her to minister to the necessities of His service."
Susannah continued to package the books in her own home. Every two weeks a full cartload of volumes left for the railroad station en route to many different destinations. Susannah sometimes carried out this ministry in weakness and pain. But she felt more than compensated by the rich blessings the ministry brought both to her... Continue Reading
Limping along through Prayer
Neglect and failure in our personal prayer life can easily be ignored because ‘Who is going to know?’
One of the less obvious passages in the Bible that may help us in this area is the account of Jacob wrestling with God at Peniel recorded in Genesis (32.22-31). Although it is often used as a paradigm for praying that is misused by treating the text more as an allegory; it does, nevertheless, offer... Continue Reading
The Place of Godly Ambition
Is ambition bad, or should we cultivate it in ourselves and in our children?
When we do a search for the word ambition in the Bible—looking through various English translations—we see it in multiple texts translated from several Greek words. The word ambition is employed in both positive and negative contexts. Negatively, James condemns those who have “bitter jealousy and selfish ambition” (James 3:14). Positively, Paul “makes it [his] ambition to preach the gospel” (Rom.... Continue Reading
Choosing Evolution: Bad Reasons for a Big Departure
While each contributor has his or her unique story, one can notice that a number of themes recur in the stories. I want to note three major ones.
How I Changed My Mind About Evolution was never intended to marshal all the arguments in favor of evolution. Rather, it tells the stories of various evangelical theologians, pastors, and scientists. As such, its style is completely in line with the purpose of its publisher BioLogos, which aims to “translate scholarship on origins for the evangelical... Continue Reading
What is Our Sexual Ethic Now?
Women are not the victims of feminism; women are the victims of existentialism.
New Testament Christianity turned the natural and accepted sexual inclinations on their heads. Not only do the New Testament apostles reaffirm the prohibition against fornication, adultery, homosexuality, and all other sorts of sexual immorality,[5]but the gospel of Christ reminds Jews and Gentiles that men and women are not just spiritual equals, but sexual equals as... Continue Reading
If We Lose the Meaning of “Justice,” We Lose the Gospel
We should not oversell or undersell what the Bible says about justice.
The word “justice” is the language of rights. As DeYoung explained, “Justice, as a biblical category, is not synonymous with anything and everything we feel would be good for the world,” though our culture is beginning to use it that way. Rather, it refers to receiving what you’re owed by right and not taking from others what... Continue Reading
5 Learnings From Serving the Church as I Go Back to the Church
After serving the broader Church for seven years, here are five learnings that I believe will be shaping my ministry for years to come.
While serving as senior vice-president of LifeWay, I was on a team that gets to serve tens of thousands of churches a year. Every week I spoke with church leaders and listened and learned from both their struggles and the places where they saw the Lord working. I was also apart of several large-scale research... Continue Reading
The Gospel According to Progressive Christianity #3: Redemption and Restoration
Historically, Original Sin is how Christians have answered the question, "What's wrong with the world?"
Diagnosing the problem is half the battle. We all know there’s something wrong with the world. We all know there’s something wrong with us. Just watch the news, read a magazine, or walk out your front door and you’ll see. Creation is broken. So, what’s the solution? I once sat with another parent at a... Continue Reading
A Holy Crime: The Night Missionaries Smuggled One Million Bibles into China
As the Open Doors missionaries departed, the books' recipients began stowing, stashing, and moving the Bibles, picking hiding places on the beach or dispensing the boxes to waiting vehicles.
The Bibles that had managed to leak out into the general population were also targeted for disposal. Chinese authorities once dumped a cache of them into a cesspool, believing they were soiled beyond use. Quickly, Chinese Catholics who had witnessed the vandalism hosed them off and sprayed them with perfume. Such was the hunger for... Continue Reading
Planning for the Future while Trusting God’s Provision
We live constantly in the experiential tension between God’s sovereignty and our responsibility, between the call to trust and the call to act.
I set my alarm to get out of bed this morning. You probably don’t judge that as an act of rank mistrust of God’s providence. I made plans. I didn’t assume that God would rouse me supernaturally at 5:30 a.m. That was not an act of unbelief but a wise embrace of secondary means. On... Continue Reading
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