Few of us meet with the success we hope for. We embark on new projects, our minds filled with grandiose dreams, but then have to content ourselves with far less than we had longed for. We set out to conquer the world but find the world doesn’t always go along with our plans. Fantasy and…
I recently shared an example of how we worshipped one Sunday at Grace Fellowship Church. Quite a few people seemed to appreciate that example of a worship service and asked me to share more. I will be glad to do so from time to time. Here is how we worshipped one Sunday just a few…
I recently returned from a whirlwind visit to Rome where I was conducting research related to a forthcoming project. Though I was not in the city for long, I made the most of it and over two long days journeyed hither and yon, tallying a little over 50 kilometers (31 miles) of walking. I rate…
Sometimes it seems like everywhere I go, I hear people grumbling about others. Maybe it’s me. Maybe people consider me a fellow grumbler and are comfortable unburdening themselves in my presence. But I’m inclined to believe it’s actually all of us and we all find some kind of catharsis in complaining about people. Even backstage…
The Bible has a lot to say about money, and for good reason. Money, we find, has a uniquely powerful way of exposing our hearts and displaying our priorities. Ultimately, we see that it comes down to a matter of loyalty: “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and…
The Bible instructs us in how we must worship God and tells us what elements we must include in our worship services. Yet it still allows a lot of leeway for us to interpret those elements to our culture and context. I thought it might be fun to share from time to time the liturgy…
Life is too difficult for us to do it on our own. We are too weak, too unwise, too full of sin. Thankfully, God does not intend for us to carry out the Christian life independently. Instead, he gives us the strength, the wisdom, and the godliness of other Christians so they can bear our…
Christians are called to love. We know this. We’ve been loved by God so we can love in return. We display proof of our salvation when we stop living self-focused lives and begin living others-focused lives. We show our love and appreciation for God in the way we turn our love outward to become “zealous…
Musician David Byrne recently advanced an interesting theory about humanity and technology. The overarching agenda of technology, he believes, is intended to eliminate human interaction. The displacement of human beings by modern technology has become so obvious and so widespread that he has been forced to conclude it is more than an unintentional byproduct of…
Sometimes God’s truth goes into your life like a quiet whisper. Sometimes it goes in like a hand grenade. Have you had one of those times? One day you hear a sermon, or you have a conversation with a fellow church member, or maybe a friend confronts you with a sin they’ve seen in your…
I love to review books that are of special interest to Christians. And even when I’m not able to review them, I still love to make people aware of titles that are new and noteworthy. Based on the number of books that are stuffed into my mailbox just about every day, I presume that Christian…
Blogs have come a long way in a short time. Though an early form of blogging existed as early as the 90s, it was not until the early 2000s that the term became widely-used and the medium became widely-adopted. In this way blogging is still in its infancy, though some are convinced it’s also in…
A well-planned worship service is a tremendous blessing to those who participate in it. A well-planned service is not necessarily one in which the projector never flickers and the microphones never buzz, or one in which the transitions are smooth and the sermon doesn’t go long. Rather, a well-planned service is one whose elements have…
Fasting is, by far, the least-appreciated and least-practiced spiritual discipline. There is a curious apathy about a discipline Jesus assumed his followers would practice. After all, just as he gave instruction on prayer prefaced by the words “And when [not if] you pray…,” he gave instruction on fasting prefaced by “And when you fast…” Both…
A few weeks ago I asked Will You Write a Mother’s Day Tribute?. Many people took up the challenge and today I want to share some of them. I asked people to mark their Mother’s Day tributes with the hashtag #dearmom17, so what I list here are drawn from articles listed with that hashtag on…
Dear Mom, We don’t really do this stuff, do we? We don’t often feel the need to say what we assume the other person already knows. It’s that British reserve, I suspect. But on this Mother’s Day, I want to tell just some of what you mean to me, and I’ll do it through a…
Systematic theology is the discipline of looking to the entire Bible to determine what God says about a given topic. It answers the question “What does the whole Bible say about __________ [fill in the blank]?” It is a logical, systematic way of organizing truth. To be skillful, accurate theologians, we need systematic theology, but…
God’s people had rejected God’s prophet. For many years, Samuel had served the nation of Israel. Though his sons had proven wayward, he himself had remained faithful. He had served well. He had spoken the words of God to the nation. He had appointed judges to govern them. But still the day came when the…
It is a display of God’s wisdom that he binds us together in local church communities. We know it is a mark of his wisdom, yet sometimes it can feel so much like folly. Sometimes we grow weary of being around people who are sinful, who are selfish, who still have so far to go.…
Our lives are short. They are, in the words of the author of Ecclesiastes, little more than vapor, dust blow by the wind. Yet the very thought that could dismay or depress you, can also motivate you. Here are some blessings that will be yours when you pause to consider your short little life. Considering…