“Ahead of a potential ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade, Founders Ministries’ Tom Ascol and other ‘abolitionists’ voice opposition to longstanding ‘incremental’ approach, calling for penalties for women.” - C.Today

“New York Times journalist Ruth Graham says many pastors are being pressured to resist vaccines and mask mandates, embrace Trump’s claims about election fraud and adopt QANON-based conspiracy theories.” - NPR

“When you read a well-crafted hymn such as When I Survey the Wond’rous Cross, you will feel the cadence, even if unaware of the melody composed for it. This is why composers can keep writing new tunes … also why many people (particularly in ages past) would read hymnals as they would any devotional book, and even delight in the hymns they’d never heard.” - C.Leaders

“…he is much better known as a controversial internet preacher with a large social media following. And in a recent message, he has crossed a very dangerous line. Every God-fearing Christian should denounce his inflammatory rhetoric, rhetoric which could easily lead to bloodshed.” - Michael Brown

The strangely ill-advised notion of a federal Disinformation Governance Board came to a merciful end this week—thankfully, at least for now.

As Americans, we cherish our First Amendment freedoms of religion, speech and the press, and tend to oppose anything that even vaguely appears to threaten them. Furthermore, as has been expressed far and wide in response to this oddly-timed proposal, we rightly view it as our role as citizens to critique the government of this Republic—not vice versa.

My purpose here, however, is to introduce a greater dilemma. Specifically, how are we as Christians to Biblically combat doctrinal, especially prophetic, disinformation?

“After a decade of enrollment decline, leaders began to see the seminary’s biggest financial asset as a liability. They hope relocation could be the big change they need.” - C.Today

“The Great Replacement theory is the latest version of a century-old white genocide conspiracy theory. At the root of the theory is the claim that ‘elites’—especially Jews—are deliberately plotting to reduce or eliminate white people in the United States and Europe.” - TGC

“Last week, Driscoll posted a video clip from a May sermon at a men’s event, wherein he discussed ‘23 Scriptures Commanding True Christians To Oppose Abortion.’” - C.Leaders

“Roughly equal shares of Americans say they live near all or most of their extended family (28%) or near some extended family (27%). Another 24% of adults say they live within an hour’s drive of only a few family members, while one-in-five say they do not live near any extended family members.” - Pew

“Jesus had no home on earth to invite others into. When he sat with the woman at the well or crossed the sea to purge a single man of his demons, he wasn’t trying hard to attract crowds…. Sometimes, no one could find him… yet he embodied hospitality—which translates from the Greek to love of the stranger—in everything he did, to everyone he met.” - C.Today

“Congress held its first hearing in half a century Tuesday on unidentified flying objects…..[Pentagon officials] said they had picked a director for a new task force to coordinate data collection efforts on what the government has officially labeled ‘unidentified aerial phenomena.’” - C.Index

There is nothing simple about making disciples, and yet, making disciples should be done simply. Forming local churches from new disciples does not need to be an overly complicated affair.

In unreached areas, or among unreached people groups, to make disciples is to plant local churches. This is what Jesus communicated to us in the Great Commission:

Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, [even] to the end of the age. Amen. (Matthew 28:19-20 NKJV)

“Words have immense power—power to do such good and power to do such harm. Words can strengthen the weak or crush them, comfort the sorrowful or grieve them, relieve the burdened or weigh them down all the more. Words can be a taste of life or a savor of death” - Challies

“The Great Resignation is an opportunity to reexamine priorities for those who were forced or chose to resign. Perhaps they were able to spend more time with their families, imagine different occupations, or evaluate their careers as divorced from money. The logical next step is to consider what they aspire to do with their lives.” - IFWE

“The Welsh minister, Martyn Lloyd-Jones (1899-1981), served at Westminster Chapel in London for 30 years, and he is considered by some to be the greatest preacher of the 20th century.” - Tim Augustyn

“Gendron said he was not a Christian, but does ‘believe in and practice many Christian values.’ We reached out to Samuel Perry….co-author of several books on White Christian Nationalism …. He explained the distinctions and overlap between White Nationalism and Christian Nationalism, how violence has crept into the American Church and what we can do about it.” - Relevant

“No longer content to merely minimize the importance for Christians of opposing abortion, a prominent progressive Christian social justice organization now argues that Roe v Wade itself should be upheld.” - Juicy Ecumenism

Read the series.

“many Christians get hung up on the most powerful technologists in the world who are inventing the most threatening innovation on earth…. Reckoning with God’s power over big tech is essential for many Christians who must resolve this obstacle before they can see and worship God for the tens of thousands of innovations they use every day.” - Ref21

“In Western culture, the high regard for autonomy and obsession with individualism has come at a cost: community. This lack of community (coupled with other factors) has contributed to rising loneliness, affecting our physical and mental well-being. In the church, it’s affecting our spiritual health too.” - TGC

The European Evangelical Alliance “warned that antisemitism is rising around the world. Taking a concrete step April 26 in opposition, it announced its adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of the issue.” - C.Today

“Even if abortion, when legal, is safer for women than illegal—even if we were to concede that—is it ethical to legalize homicide just to make it safer for those who participate in it?” - Breakpoint

“Hall, a firebrand polemicist known for his take-no-prisoners approach in attacking liberals, offered to resign as pastor of his church. The church claims he suffers from a vitamin deficiency.” - RNS

“After Russia’s withdrawal from Kyiv suburbs, Irpin evangelical ministries emulate the scattered yet persevering church from Acts 8.” - C.Today

“Tom Ascol… called the ERLC a ‘rogue entity’ and called on the ERLC trustees to take action. ‘I urge … to immediately remove @LeatherwoodTN as acting President of the @ERLC,’” Leatherwood had signed a letter from National Right to Life rejecting criminal penalties for women who get abortions. - BPNews

“Seven-in-ten Americans view inflation as a very big problem for the country, followed by the affordability of health care (55%) and violent crime (54%).” - Pew

“Many churches consist of one primary generation, and that’s not the healthiest church.” - Chuck Lawless

“As a black pastor trained in a conservative evangelical school, I have been grieved to watch my white fellow pastors debate each other and divide over racial issues….Into this fray enters George Yancey with his new book, Beyond Racial Division: A Unifying Alternative to Colorblindness and Antiracism.” - TGC

Read the series.

The Covenant of Grace (2)

It is almost impossible to overstate the importance of “the covenant of grace” to Reformed theology. When one reads of “the covenant” in the writings of CT’s the implication is that it is the covenant of grace. When it comes to CT’s comprehending the Bible as a “redemptive-historical” book, the thing that is powering this is the covenant of grace. Hence,

In my Bible reading this morning, I read this passage and have been meditating much on it this morning:

2 Cor. 10:3 For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh:

4 (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;)

5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;