You see, I’m persuaded that in the here and now, many of us experience a Gospel blindness. Our sight is dimmed by the tyranny of the urgent, by the siren call of success, by the seductive beauty of physical things, by our inability to admit our own problems, and by the casual relationships within the... Continue Reading

More than one financial-aid counselor told me it would be impossible to graduate debt-free. It often seemed like the naysayers were right. But persistence helped me pull it off. And even if I had fallen short, I still would have had to borrow much less than the average student. I may not have had as... Continue Reading

Biblical church discipline is a culture of accountability, growth, forgiveness, and grace that should permeate our churches. Each member of a church has a responsibility to help others as they struggle with sin—not through judgment and criticism, but rather with gentleness and an eye toward restoration, knowing that he too is subject to temptation (Gal.... Continue Reading

YouVersion, with over 600 Bible translations in more than 400 languages, is by far the church’s biggest success. The app is nondenominational, including versions embraced by Catholics, Russian Orthodox and Messianic Jews. This month, the app reached 100 million downloads, placing it in the company of technology start-ups like Instagram and Dropbox. “They have defined... Continue Reading

Hopefully, the next time a pastor or someone tries to pull the guilt trip on you, you will see through it. Guilt trips are just that. They are trips to get us motivated into responding the way the speaker wants us to respond, and that never leads to salvation, because it is based upon deception... Continue Reading

I had no idea what “worse” would look like in marriage. We were both naive. We thought we took the high and happy road by being fully committed to covenantal love for one another, and that would lead to a ton of better and little worse. Experientially  it didn’t. Though we’ve never even discussed divorce since... Continue Reading

When an assembly of judges accused John Bunyan of preaching heresy, Elizabeth courageously declared: “My lord, when the righteous Judge shall appear, it will be known that his doctrine is not the doctrine of the devil.” This same confidence in eternal vindication has characterized many godly women of the past.  It must also characterize wives... Continue Reading

Rice also worked as a writer on “American Idol” before creating a production company called Sycamore Pictures with his partner, Memphis resident Ben Nearn. “We ended up raising, roughly, a $50 million equity fund,” he said. “We have that at our discretion, and now we just find good projects.” “The Way, Way Back,” was one... Continue Reading

Among some of Ancient Aliens’ claims: Ezekiel’s vision of a wheel was a UFO, taking communion is based on cannibalistic alien technology, aliens were behind Noah’s flood, Noah was the son of an alien, aliens gave Moses the Ten Commandments, angels are aliens, aliens destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, aliens gave John his Revelation, aliens, aliens,... Continue Reading

Church is like marriage in a lot of ways. In the beginning it’s fun, and exciting, but eventually the honeymoon comes to an end and it’s work, real work, but we find that the work is rewarding and worthwhile, and it’s work that God meant for us to be doing.   1. Don’t participate, merely consume.... Continue Reading