“According to the research organization Operation World, Iran has the fastest-growing evangelical movement in the world. The second-fastest-growing church is in Afghanistan—where Afghans are being reached in large part by Iranians.” - TGC

“Every worldview answers the questions ‘What’s wrong with the world?’ and ‘How can it be fixed?’ Some worldviews get the answers to these questions very, very wrong. Hatred of the Jews, for example, is perhaps the oldest hatred in the world.” - John Stonestreet and Maria Baer

“In court documents, Ramsey Solutions said O’Connor, who is not married, was fired for having premarital sex, which violated the company’s ‘righteous living’ policy.” - C. Leaders

“Evangelist’s LGBT views are protected by UK Equality Act, court rules.” - C.Today

Baucham: “This is a religious movement….It has all the trappings of a religion. It has its own cosmology, it has its own saints, it has its own liturgy, its own law. It has all of those elements. And a lot of those things are very subtle, which makes them rather attractive to religious people.” - FaithWire/CBN

“Why did he do it? He said he would have signed the bill if it prohibited only transgender surgery on minors, but it went too far to interfere with the relationship between physicians and parents. He also did not like that it would not have made exceptions for children already receiving hormone treatments.” - WORLD

Related at National Review: Arkansas Governor Vetoes Ban on Gender Transition Surgery for Minors

“Theologically fraught conspiracy theories have been swirling online, particularly in some evangelical circles. In a recent video posted online, U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., similarly suggested — without evidence — a connection between the Mark of the Beast and vaccines.” - NPR

“I think that Calvinism appeals to young Christians because it claims to have all the answers and a highly systematic explanation of God and the Bible. As they mature, many, of not most, of them change their minds.” - Roger Olson

Although it is not an annunciation story, it is proper to include here some thoughts about how John begins his Gospel. John self-consciously invokes the creation narrative, but he introduces the “only begotten Son” (Jn. 1:18), Jesus Christ (Jn. 1:17), as the Logos or “Word” as a Principal in the making of the world:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. (John 1:1-3)

“Each kit, worth $2,500, provides access to all the Bible translation software a language group needs, along with a built-in satellite internet connection. When one language group receives a BTAK and translates the Scriptures into their own heart language, they pass along what they’ve learned to other language groups in their region, according to Wycliffe.” - C.Post

“In recent months I have often mentioned the growing importance of poetry in my life. As we come to Good Friday and Easter, I have been enjoying some of the devotional poetry of days gone by, and was especially struck by Hannah Flagg Gould’s “To the Mourner.’” - Challies

“Some abortion advocates point to a passage in the New International Version as Biblical justification for abortion. But the NIV’s speculative translation clouds rather than clarifies” - WORLD

“Towards the end of the book, after assembling her evidence and indicting the totality of evangelical Christianity as White and Patriarchal, she writes: ‘Driscoll, Mahaney, Patrick, MacArthur, and MacDonald had all risen to prominence through their aggressive promotion of patriarchal power. To those who cared to notice, it was clear that Trump wasn’t the first domineering leader to win over evangelicals.’” - Anne Kennedy

“…ruling the ‘spirit of the trickster’ out of hand runs the theological risk of mistaking longstanding human conventions for points of natural law—just as, in a slightly different context, the priests of Jesus’s day confused whether the Sabbath was made for man or vice versa” - John Ehret

“Talking about ethics is not an easily embraced conversation in today’s electrified political society, but Michael Jones, Mark Farnham, and David Saxon talk through 15 ethical topics in their new book Talking About Ethics: A Conversational Approach to Moral Dilemmas.” - MBBU

Reposted from Rooted Thinking.

The Disciple-Maker’s Challenge

Everyone who seeks to make disciples in obedience to Jesus Christ faces the same difficulty:

We all try to discern whether or not those we lead to profess Jesus Christ have genuinely believed.

None of us wants to give an unbeliever false hope of salvation if they have not yet repented and placed their faith in Jesus. And so, we all face frustration.

“When it was originally published Tuesday, the article asserted that ‘it’s not possible to know a person’s gender identity at birth, and there is no consensus criteria for assigning sex at birth.’” - CPost

“Four reasons Christianity offers unparalleled confidence that history is headed somewhere good.” - C.Today

“It raises the perennial question about Christian engagement with pop culture, specifically artifacts like movies, TV shows, and music. How should Christians engage these things? While the Bible doesn’t directly answer these questions, it is sufficient to guide us into holiness, and it gives us the wisdom we need when considering whether to push play.” - LifeWay

“When on the cross, not only was the Father’s justice satisfied by the atoning work of the Son, but in bearing our sins the Lamb of God removed our sins from us as far as the east is from the west. He did it by being cursed.” - R.C.Sproul

“Of course, the greater object of derision is the ‘God’ on the cross, pictured with the head of an ass. This blasphemous touch shows the contempt that the Son of God received when He suffered this kind of death.” - Veith

“in a stunning vision of the future, the book of Revelation describes how, when Christ’s eternal kingdom comes, the heavenly temple will stand open (Rev. 11:15). The ark of the covenant…will be seen by all (Rev. 11:19). No curtain blocks the way.” - TGC

What a tumultuous week it had been for Jesus’ disciples. Talk about going through a whirlwind! By Sunday evening, they were practically—almost literally—driven out of their minds.

Each of these men had spent—wasted?—three years in the school of Christ.

But now, suddenly, it was over. This was the end—and now it was time to return to the mundane tasks that had been all but forgotten over the course of the previous years.

But they did not realize that, for each of them, life—real life—was actually just about to begin.

Unexpectedly, Jesus appeared to them—walking into a room with closed doors (see John 20:19, 26). Amazing things were about to happen!

“I can’t even tell you how many times I saw the same pattern in my legal career. An aggressive university or aggressive government agency would take direct aim at a social conservative client… the university would not only lose, it would also sometimes set a precedent that built the fortress of free speech or religious liberty larger and stronger. ” - David French

“Forbearance is more than a nicety we extend to fellow church members when convenient. It’s a moral responsibility: we are called to clothe ourselves with the virtue of “bearing with one another” in fidelity to Christ (Eph. 4:2; Col. 3:13; cf. Rom. 15:1).” - 9 Marks

“while the sneakers themselves are a momentary (yet demented) publicity grab, Lil Nas X’s popularity with little children is deeply alarming. What are the parents thinking?” - Michael Brown

“When it comes to how to start a church, two things are certain, though: (1) God can provide, and (2) people matter more than money.” - C.Leaders

“Have you noticed this vision of Christianity in the public square that seems muscular, confident,… tired of Christianity’s never-ending losses in the culture war. It rightly criticizes the decadence, perversion, and irrational norms of secularism and understands that under the guise of ‘neutrality,’ secularism has become the functional god of this age.” - TGC

“This year, the majority of pastors (80%) [are] excited to celebrate Easter with congregants inside their church buildings with COVID-19 precautions in place. Another one in five (22%) [are] meeting outdoors to accommodate social distancing during the worship service.” - Barna

The so-called “long day” recorded in Joshua 10:12-14 has generated much discussion among Bible scholars. Before Copernicus’ heliocentric solar system gained acceptance, interpreters argued that the sun’s and moon’s orbits were halted. Martin Luther, for example, reportedly denounced Copernicus and declared, “I believe the Holy Scriptures, for Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, not the earth.”¹ But with the advent of modern astronomy and science, serious objections have been raised against this interpretation.