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The Powerlessness of Positive Thinking
“Positive thinking says if you just dig deep enough in yourself, you will find strength to conquer anything. The gospel says when you have no strength left, God will sustain you. Positive thinking looks to goodness in creation to solve immediate problems. The gospel looks to the Creator to solve eternal problems. Positive thinking holds up in everyday struggles, but in the deepest and darkest times offers very little. The gospel, however, shines brighter than ever in the deep darkness.”
Why Do You Want to Go to Heaven?
Jon Bloom: “In one sense, the Bible tells us relatively little about the specifics of heaven. Descriptions of heaven are often analogical or symbolic, framed in archaic images we might find strange. In another sense, however, the Bible speaks of heaven all over the place, and in ways very relevant to us. The Bible, on almost every page, speaks not so much of the mansions and Maseratis that may come, but of the great Satisfaction for which our souls deeply long.”
Render to God
“Something has to change. It’s time to make a shift. Blending into the world around us is no longer an option for the church. The culture rejects the Christian worldview and won’t be appeased by anything short of total ideological surrender, so it’s time for us to get counter-cultural.”
Largest U.S. Evangelical Adoption Agency Waves the Rainbow Flag
Joe Carter explains how and why the largest evangelical adoption agency in the US began to wave the rainbow flag.
Hello? Is Anybody Listening?
You may need this reminder that God is not a distracted parent who is constantly fixated on his iPhone.
Book Banning in an Age of Amazon
Abigail Shrier’s newsletter on Amazon’s decision to ban Ryan T. Anderson’s book on transgenderism is an important one. “In a time marked by so much suppression of speech by Big Tech, the muggings can begin to run together. We are already growing accustomed to cancellation. But of all the violence to free inquiry we’ve witnessed in the last year, the deliberate disappearance of a mainstream conservative book is among the very worst.”
Don’t Despise Transfer Growth
Pastors tend to disparage transfer growth but, as Stephen Kneale shows here, perhaps they shouldn’t. “There is a legitimate discussion to be had about hoarding resources. We should be talking more strategically about where people go, why they go there and how we can get them to move to the areas of greatest need. There are legitimate questions to be asked about whether a church of 500 or 600 people needs more people to transfer in or whether the kingdom is better served by encouraging those people to go to a smaller church in need of help. All of these things are legitimate to ask and there is a right discussion to be had about them. But…”
Flashback: 3 Tips for Responding to Criticism
In his little book True Friendship, Vaughan Roberts offers three tips for responding to criticism, and especially this kind of criticism—the kind that comes in the context of friendship, of iron sharpening iron.
I don’t need to look good so Jesus can look good; I need to be honest about my colossal spiritual need so he can look all-sufficient. —Sam Allberry