As iron sharpens iron,
one person sharpens another. (Proverbs 27:17)
“Smith started Friendly Neighbor Epidemiologist, a Facebook page, in March 2020 … Since then, the page, written in Smith’s friendly, informational voice, has grown to more than 96,000 followers. About half are evangelical Christians, she said. But threats and pushback have also followed” - C.Today
“…love is not an involuntary thing. It is something we do purposefully based on our knowledge of the person we love. Nothing can be in the heart that is not first in the mind. And if we want to have an experience of God directly where we bypass the mind, we’re on a fool’s errand.” - R.C. Sproul
“How are such people thinking? They’re thinking outwardly; they’re focused not on what they want or need, but on what’s in the best interest of the people around them.” - Olinger
“Scripture shows that well-instructed believers develop a determination to rejoice. They will rejoice in the Lord. Habakkuk exemplified this in difficult days (see Hab. 3:17–18).” - Sinclair Ferguson
“If you scan through the uses of this word in the NT, you can’t help noticing something that you may find surprising—the frequent connection of joy with trials.” - Olinger
For many of us it was never about fear. We wore masks. We social-distanced. We avoided gatherings. We encouraged people to consider participating in Sunday school and worship over Zoom or Facebook Live. We respected the officials who—for better or worse, correct or incorrect—made the tough calls and closed businesses, limited gatherings, and recommended or required masks.
We were not “afraid.”
We didn’t choose “fear instead of faith” and certainly didn’t choose “fear instead of science.”
“This is not to say that truth is relative or that reason doesn’t work or that persuasion isn’t possible. It’s just that, in the real world, believing and not believing are complicated.” - Veith
“In the last post we looked at some of the biblical warnings about anger. This time I’ll note that sometimes, according to the same Scripture, anger is justified.” - Olinger
“This book is really, really good. It is based on a series of 21 sermons that you can listen to online….the audio quality is not great, but if you are in a quiet place or you have noise-canceling headphones you’ll be able to get a sense of the man behind the book.” - Tim Augustyn
The Scriptures constantly remind us to fear God (Leviticus 25:17, for example), and we find out that such a fear is the “beginning of knowledge” (ESV, Proverbs 1:7), while the fear of man “lays a snare” (Proverbs 29:25).
Discussion