Category: Around the Web

The Early Bird Gets The Link

On By joshnnomiIn Around the WebLeave a comment

The Early Bird Gets The Link is a daily roundup of interesting and thought provoking articles, videos, or audio clips.

Ask Not for Whom the Volcano Erupts; It Erupts for Thee: A Response to David Gushee

Christians in America now face a moment of judgment at the hands of a secular culture that grows more intensely adversarial with each passing day. Churches, institutions, and individuals committed to the Christian church’s historic sexual ethic, held consistently over two millennia, now find themselves faced with a stark choice — join the sexual revolution or face the consequences.

When All Your Dreams Come True

A great reference from the Twilight Zone. “You want to be happy. You know it in your heart, and research confirms it too.”

What a New Book Showed Me About the Charismatic Movement

This is a very interesting piece about the Charismatic Movement.

Small Towns Need Jesus Too

Small towns in the States are a major mission field. Thirty-three million people live in small towns in rural areas and another 23 million live in small towns considered “urban fringe.” As Griggs persuasively argues, these people need strong churches in their towns so that they can receive gospel witness and discipleship. 

Four Mistakes Rural Pastors Make (That All Pastors Need to Avoid)

Good and practical. 

The Early Bird Gets The Link

On By joshnnomiIn Around the WebLeave a comment

The Early Bird Gets The Link is a daily roundup of interesting and thought provoking articles, videos, or audio clips.
12 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Posting Something Online

Here are 12 brief questions you can ask yourself before you post some thing on line.

The Sin of Discontent

How many times do you find yourself excusing your bad attitude in the midst of trials or when things don’t go your way? If so-and-so hadn’t done this, or if such-and-such was more like that, then everything would be fine.

In the Arena: An Excerpt – Baseball, Dads and Discipleship

A much needed book is releasing soon and you can pre-order it right and get 40% off. “In the Arena: The Promise of Sports for Christian Discipleship talks about why sports evoke those emotions we feel watching a great moment like one Michael Lorenzen experienced. Below is an excerpt from In the Arena that begins to touch on why sports touch something deep within us in the most unexpected moments.”

How The Bible Sustained Me During My Darkest Days

There are some joys in life that you can only learn through the school of suffering.

On Empty Nests, Christian Mommy Guilt, and Misplaced Identity

I walked through last week with a tape in my head chanting, “I miss them I miss them I miss them.” I thought of life after that last baby leaves and could conjure up no vision for what would come next. Meaningless, meaningless. I did the only reasonable thing: I attempted to fill the hole in my heart with cookies—a lot of cookies. I overreacted to things that normally wouldn’t have bothered me. The internal ache hurt so deeply and caused so much distraction that I once again had to face the ultimate Christian mommy-guilt question: Do I love my kids too much?

Nothing Less Than Justice

Now, Jesus plainly did not preach a “social gospel.” Speaking to social issues was not the primary focus of his ministry, but many of us today need to be reminded that it was an aspect of his ministry. We speak well to the social issues that affect those in other nations of the world — and rightfully lament the staggering numbers of image-bearers murdered, impoverished, and trafficked in developed and developing nations. But far too often, local injustices — the ones down the street and around the corner, the ones that feel too close to home — are met with silence or apathy.

Marvel/Full House Mashup Enjoy


The Early Bird Gets The Link 

On By joshnnomiIn Around the WebLeave a comment

The Early Bird Gets The Link is a daily roundup of interesting and thought provoking articles, videos, or audio clips.
Millennials Don’t Want Your Sex for Now. Here’s Why

The next generation inhabits a sexually charged landscape though surprising new research suggests a cooling down

Help Me Teach the Bible: Rosaria Butterfield on Teaching with Openness, Unhindered

Worth listening to.

Remember Their Names

How can you help family members of public figures like pastors, politicians, entertainers, and other community leaders?

Calvinism, Hyper-Calvinism, and World Missions

In his most famous work, The Gospel Worthy of All Acceptation, Andrew Fuller piles text upon text in which unbelievers are addressed with the duty to believe. These are his final court of appeal against the High Calvinists, who use their professed logic to move from biblical premises to unbiblical conclusions.

7 Dangers of Embracing Mere Therapeutic Forgiveness

Brauns does a phenomenal job of showing the difference between biblical forgiveness and what he terms therapeutic forgiveness.

The Early Bird Gets The Link 

On By joshnnomiIn Around the WebLeave a comment

The Romans 12:2 Approach to Knowing God’s Will
We all desire to know God’s will, this article speaks to that desire and has links to resources for further studying. 

BLOCKED! Engaging False Teachers on Social Media

All that said, what is our motivation? What is the posture of our hearts as we purposely seek to be blocked on social media by a false teacher? Are we responding out of vengeance? Are we addressing these false teachers as a way to playfully mock those seemingly condemned?

How to Live with the Unappeasable Unbeliever

So what do you do? What do you do when someone absolutely refuses to live in peace with you—at least so long as you are hanging on to biblical truth?

Meet a Reformed Arminian

“Reformed Arminian.” Such a phrase seems an oxymoron along the lines of jumbo shrimp, heated ice, or left-wing conservative.

Help Me Teach the Bible: Rosaria Butterfield on Teaching with Openness, Unhindered

Worth Listening to.

How Donald Trump Divided and Conquered the Religious Right

It’s time for me to sit down for a nice meal of crow.

The Early Bird Gets The Link

On By joshnnomiIn Around the WebLeave a comment

The Early Bird Gets The Link is a daily roundup of interesting and thought provoking articles, videos, or audio clips.
How Sould We Speak to Our Culture About Sex?

Tim Keller, Russell Moore and Kevin DeYoung discuss the topic. 

https://vimeo.com/170164938 

Wait to Date Until You Can Marry

The spiritual war for our hearts is real, and the stakes are high, so it’s critical to ask why we think we should date in the first place. Why did I have a girlfriend when I was twelve (and thirteen, and fourteen, and even eighteen)?

Is Not Voting an Option for Christians?

If the early church in the Roman empire had possessed the right to vote, would casting a ballot for Nero have been a God honoring choice? What about his rival Gaius Calpurnius Piso, who most would argue wasn’t as evil as Nero but was an adulterer and conspirator? The early church, despite their lack of rights, did not seem overly concerned who sat on the Roman throne, instead choosing to invest in Kingdom work that would last regardless of who was in charge of the empire. It leads me to think we might prioritize the same way.

Should We Help Believers Escape Persecution?

Do our churches, our sending agencies, and our organizations that study persecution know when to leave Joseph in Egypt? Despite our affection for Joseph, do we understand that ultimately Joseph belongs to God, and that God can do with him whatever he desires? Is it possible for us to become emotionally, psychologically, physically, and spiritually strong enough to know when to leave “our Joseph” with God in a seemingly dangerous place?

Prayer is Joining a Conversation Already in Progress

Prayer – amazingly, gloriously – is when we join a conversation already in progress.

Life Hacking Gone Wrong: The Story of Benjamin Franklin

This interview with Thomas Kidd by Tony Reinke is worth listening to. 

The Early Bird Gets The Link

On By joshnnomiIn Around the WebLeave a comment

The Early Bird Gets The Link is a daily roundup of interesting and thought provoking articles, videos, or audio clips.

The Feminization of Christianity

This series by the Art of Manliness has definitely been interesting. “Welcome back to our series on the relationship between Christianity and masculinity, which aims to explore the historical and cultural factors that have made women statistically more likely to be committed to the religion than men.”

Given Deborah, Jael, and Judith, Why Shouldn’t Women Serve in Combat?

Here are three different views concerning women in combat. 

Simon Goulart’s Path to Joy

John Piper isn’t kidding when he says that he didn’t make this Christian hedonism stuff up. There is a rich history of “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him”. 

6 Observations about Leading Children to Jesus

There is no greater honor as a pastor than to lead someone to trust in Jesus. When it comes to the children in our churches, this honor is a great responsibility. Here are 6 observations about talking with children regarding faith in Jesus Christ.

10 Ways to Lie About Addiction

Fragmentation: One helpful way to think of deception within addiction is fragmentation; telling parts (i.e., fragments) of your story as if they were the whole story and expecting others to respond accordingly.

The Gospel According to ‘Stranger Things’

I must admit I enjoyed the Netflix original Stranger Things. Here is one writers take on seeing the Gospel in Stranger Things. 

The Early Bird Gets The Link 

On By joshnnomiIn Around the WebLeave a comment

The Early Bird Gets The Link is a daily roundup of thought provoking and insightful articles from various sources. 

Are Young Evangelicals More Liberal Than Their Parents?
Interesting study. “The young, restless, and… liberal? Are younger evangelicals really more left-leaning than their parents? The easy answer is, “Of course they are! Look at how many of them are voting for pot legalization and driving those tiny cars!”

Signposts: Why Christians Must Keep Christianity Strange

The Gospel thrived in the 1st century, one reason is because the Gospel was radically different from all they were used to. Moore says “Only a strange gospel can differentiate itself from the culture around us. But the strange, freakish, foolish old gospel is what God uses to save sinners and to build the Church.”

Do You Pray Like a Nonbeliever?

So then, what is the difference? How should Christians pray? Do they not pray for these good things?

Four Types of Churches That Will Soon Die

In simple terms, there are four types of churches that will soon die. It is sad to watch the churches in these categories. Some congregations are in more than one category. And some are in all four.

5 Levels of Motivation for Overcoming Addiction

We want to, but we don’t. We’re motivated, but we’re not. We think we should, but wish people would just leave us alone. This mindset is called “ambivalence” – feeling two contradictory emotions about the same thing. Even if we didn’t know what ambivalence was, we’re good at it.