As iron sharpens iron,
one person sharpens another. (Proverbs 27:17)
“…most people obtain their worldview by unconsciously absorbing it from the culture rather than consciously adopting it from Scripture. Identifying and mastering the components of the biblical worldview will strengthen the faith of any believer, help us to detect and refute error, and live consistent with the way the world really works.” - P&D
“In her new book, Holier Than Thou: How God’s Holiness Helps Us Trust Him, Jackie Hill Perry—author, poet, Bible teacher, and artist—invites readers to consider what the reality of God’s holiness means for our daily lives.” - TGC
“The ERLC trustees endorsed without opposition a profile presented by the presidential search committee that consists of eight criteria a candidate must meet to fulfill the role of the commission’s next head.” - BPNews
“The new study of people’s giving intentions across the nation shows a whopping 90% of donors expect to give the same — or even more — to charity this year compared with last year, which smashed records.” - RNS
“The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has installed Rev. Megan Rohrer as the first openly transgender bishop to serve in the liberal mainline Protestant denomination’s history.” - CPost
(See also AP/ChurchLeaders)
“Worship based on purpose, however, responds to a relationship that already exists internally. So, we respond not because of what our songs do to us, but instead, because of what Christ has already done in us.” - C.Leaders
“Enyart is at least the fifth conservative talk-radio host to die from COVID-19. Previously, Marc Bernier, Phil Valentine, Jimmy DeYoung, and Dick Farrel succumbed after publicly opposing vaccines and/or public-health mitigation efforts.” - C.Leaders
Vaccine mandates have arrived, and so have questions about religious exemptions. What should Christians think about them? I’ll provide one over-arching principle, then briefly discuss some common religious justifications we see offered up.
The Third Commandment tells us we must not misuse God’s name (Ex 20:7; Deut 5:11). One way we do this is when we invoke God as an authority to justify something we want to do. I want to do something, so I use God as a blank check, and I get my free pass. But … did God really say that?
“Bunyan’s Vanity Fair in Our Phones … Where Bunyan’s Christian walked through the streets and alleys of Vanity Fair, we scroll through them with the flick of our thumbs. And what is the effect on our souls?” - TGC
“t’s easy to see only the negative—and even magnify it—when we’re hurting. That’s when we need to pray the prayer of Moses: ‘Please, let me see your glory’ (Exo 33:18).” - Chuck Lawless
“If your ‘news’ sources know what you believe and like (and they do) and you believe what you like to hear, then it should be no surprise that you are presented with more of it, magnified and deepened.” - Ken Brown
“Six weeks later, one morning I woke up deaf. The ‘bad ear’ was its normal self, but the ‘good ear’ was just gone; it was now by far the ‘bad ear.’” - Olinger
“ ‘Faith not Fear’ is a mantra ringing out across the country, where such debates have reached a fever pitch. That is the case in Cobb County, Georgia.” - RNS
“Best Value Regional University in the South: 3 … Top Performers on Social Mobility among Regional Universities in the South: 2 … Best Undergraduate Teaching among Regional Universities in the South: 21” - BJU Today
“…so instead of praying, they needed to act. This is why we read, ‘Then the Lord said to Moses, “Why are you crying out to Me? Tell the sons of Israel to go forward” ’ (Ex. 14:15).” - Robin Schumacher
“What the New York Times calls a ‘novel use of a law on workplace safety’ is an invented power that violates the letter and spirit of Article II’s limits …But as has been the case for much of Washington’s decade-long journey into constitutional contempt, this one will end up as pure partisan applesauce.” - The Dispatch
Related:
“Seeing ourselves as the Body of Christ is not to demean personal experience, but a help to guard against allowing our focus to shift to ‘our’ personal experience rather than on who Christ is and what He as done.” - C.Leaders
“If a mother is just a birthing person … a mother’s child is not hers in any morally thick sense. If children are raised to believe parental authority is arbitrary, and if lawyers and policymakers ingest the same vision, then the rich network of claims and duties binding parents to children will become publicly unintelligible.” - Public Discourse
“We feel sorry for Uzzah, don’t we? From our perspective, he was simply a man with good intentions. He was just trying to help, we say. Yet Uzzah had sinned against God.” - C.Today
“It’s this shift in our sense of reality—away from the physical world and towards experience—that’s the crux of the issue. We seem to care less and less about whether our experiences are in reality or in a virtual world. But whether it’s real or virtual, if we experience it, is there any real difference?” - PC Gamer
“Jesus did not always weep with those who wept…. When the crowds were rejoicing on Palm Sunday, Jesus wept (Luke 20:41), and when the women were mourning for Jesus on his way to the cross, he told them not to weep for him (23:28).” - Kevin DeYoung
A great deal has been written about “the Times of the Gentiles,” especially by Dispensational writers. But before we can know what it refers to we must situate it in the discourse in which it stands. I have given reasons why Luke 21:20-23 concern the end of days. Jesus speaks of Jerusalem being surrounded by armies (Lk. 21:20), and of the city being trampled down by the Gentiles (Lk. 21:24b). It seems natural to think of Zechariah 12:1-31 and Revelation 11:2. The context of “the Times of the Gentiles” in Luke, therefore, points to the end time siege of Jerusalem by the armies of the Gentile nations.
“I don’t agree with the political views of my company. They voice their views; yet, I think I would be fired if I voiced mine. I want to keep my job, yet I want to distance myself from their positions. Any advice?” - C.Post
Podcast: “In the second episode of the Remembering 9/11 series, Sarah Zylstra tells the rest of Christina and Brian Stanton’s story—a return to an apartment littered with scraps of World Trade Center papers, an attempt to cope on their own, and an encounter with a church called Redeemer Presbyterian.” - TGC
“The popular hymn prompted a movement to revive congregational singing and launched the careers of Keith and Kristyn Getty.” - RNS
“Most simply defined, it is the belief that determinism and free will are compatible. That is, it is possible to believe in both without contradiction.” - Roger Olson
“Carlson and others on the right have expressed admiration for Hungarian policies that squash progressive ideals, not realizing that the executive consolidation of power present in Hungary could do the same thing to conservative ideas if a progressive rises to power.” - Acton
“While Lessons from the Upper Room is an exposition of John 13-17, it is by no means a dry or academic work. To the contrary, it is devotional and applicable. It did, after all, begin as a series of lessons for laypersons—a teaching series distributed through Ligonier Ministries.” - Challies
Does the protocol prescribed to determine the guilt or innocence of a possibly unfaithful wife when other evidence is lacking describe an abortive procedure? I have run into some acquaintances of late that insist that it does. Would appreciate a clearer understanding of what is being presented here.
