Many years ago my grandmother succumbed to cancer and went to be with Jesus. Among the things she left behind, buried among other personal effects, was a long, handwritten letter from Joni Eareckson Tada. My grandmother had experienced excruciating pain in her life, losing both a daughter and her husband to suicide. As a new…
Snap Judgments – There is some real wisdom in this article: “The danger of using photos as markers is that images appeal to our vanity. We become quickly obsessed with accumulating experiences, capturing them in photos, and publicly displaying our photos as trophies. If we aren’t careful, our Facebook pages and blogs can become trophy…
I have spent the past few days in Orlando at the Gospel Coalition Conference. As it always the case when I am at a major conference, I have spent a lot of my time in the bookstore. There is something therapeutic about wading through a massive bookstore, and especially so when the bookstore is so…
Undermining Marriage – “Just because you are hetero-sexual does not mean that you are reflecting God’s plan for marriage. You don’t get a pass just on marriage because you are not Gay. The basis of a marriage reflecting God’s plan is how it reflects the gospel. In other words a marriage is reflective of God’s…
Almost 2,000 years ago, a Christian named Paul wrote a letter to a group of people in Corinth, a city in Greece. People in that city had at one time been enthusiastic about the Christian faith, but had then begun to have some second thoughts. They had written a letter to Paul to ask something…
What We Can Learn from African Christians – I had intended to link to this article yesterday but the link somehow got messed up. So here it is again: an article on what we can learn from Christians in Africa. Suicide and Christians – Responding to the news of Rick Warren’s son’s suicide, David Murray…
Over the past few weeks I have found myself thinking a lot about love. C.S. Lewis told us that according to the Bible there are four kinds of love: phileo, eros, agape, and storge. But I haven’t been thinking of love in such neat categories and under such clear headings. (Plus, D.A. Carson declared the…
Who Works – Here’s an interesting chart showing who is in the workforce and who is not. Gospel Coalition Livestream – The Gospel Coalition conference begins today. You can follow it live online. I’m down here in Orlando for the next few days taking it all in. Rick Warren – You may have heard the…
4 Truths About Hell – Tom Ascol: “So, what should we think of hell? Is the idea of it really responsible for all the cruelty and torture in the world? Is the doctrine of hell incompatible with the way of Jesus Christ? Hardly. In fact, the most prolific teacher of hell in the Bible is…
Josh Harris slapped me across the face. He did it through his book Humble Orthodoxy and a little story that is adapted from the words of Jesus in Luke 18. He tells the story “to challenge those of us who trust in the rightness of our doctrine and look down on others.” In other words,…
This week’s Free Stuff Fridays is sponsored Zondervan. They are giving away a pretty good prize package here. There will be five winners this week, and each of those winners will receive the following five books: Giveaway Rules: You may enter one time. As soon as the winners have been chosen, all names and addresses…
Leading the Church While Leading Your Family – This is a fantastic article for church leaders and anyone else. Seriously, give it a read. ” Can we really be effective pastors and good husbands and dads? Do we really have to choose between the church and our family?” Sexual Assault Awareness Month – The month…
Please order my book and film Epic: An Around-the-World Journey through Christian History.
The Trinity and the Christian Life – The newest edition of the online magazine Credo is intended “to bring our minds back to the beauty, glory, and majesty of our triune God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” The Bottom Line of Christian Ministry – “In the business world, the bottom line is the last line of…
The Internet has forever changed the way Christians relate to one another. In giving us a common medium and allowing all of us to participate in it, it has made the church feel so much smaller. Local communities based on common geography have given way to a global community based on common interest. But at…
How to Reach the Middle Class – Mez McConnell hits a little bit below the belt in this one! “Congratulations. You have been saved from a housing scheme background and you have taken the step to enter into cross cultural ministry. Ministering to the middle class is fraught with many pitfalls and dangers and is…
In 2010 Josh Harris released Dug Down Deep, a book concerned with sound doctrine. He encouraged the reader to unashamedly embrace that much-maligned word theology and to “dig deep into a faith so solid you can build your life on it.” In the final chaper he called Christians to a “humble orthodoxy” and many considered…
The Haddon Robinson Principle – Here’s a helpful article for preachers. “‘Ideally, each sermon is the explanation, interpretation, or application of a single dominant idea supported by other ideas, all drawn from one passage or several passages of Scripture.’ How many points was that? Three? Five? No. One point. One single point. So here’s our…
April is upon us, and to get the month started right, here are some wallpapers calendars to dress up your computer, tablet or cell phone. This month’s wallpaper comes from my good friends at Church Plant Media (and I mean that— they’re actually friends). Specifically, it comes from Andrew Bradshaw, their Creative Director. Church Plant…