Category: Around the Web

The Early Bird Gets The Link 

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The DJ Making the Angels Rap

Many have heard of the passing of DJ Offical, Nathan Chu. His impact on hip hop is deep and wide. 
The Widow’s Mite and Abusing The Poor 

So if this anecdote from Luke’s gospel has nothing to do with giving, what is the point? Why did Luke and the Holy Spirit include it in this gospel account?

With Love, Your Single Daughter
Whether you are single or married, your theology of singleness will profoundly influence the life of the church. Instead of writing a five-point essay defending this statement, I submit to you a letter, a letter inspired from the experiences of many godly single women, from 20-somethings to 70-somethings.* While the letter is written to parents, most aspects can be profitably read as addressed to a congregation from a single sister. May the Lord use this to propel you to develop and live out a biblical theology of singleness.  

Top 10 Things I Wish Worship Leaders Would Stop Saying

I have heard them all, except for #5. 

A sober warning about “The Transgender Contagion”

If you think this is an overstatement, you are not paying attention. The medical community has embraced the transgender revolution, and dissent from its ideology is no longer allowed.

The Early Bird Gets The Link 

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Question and Answer
In a question and answer period after one of his lectures, C.S. Lewis was asked which of the world’s religions gives its followers the greatest happiness. Lewis paused and said this: 

Should Children Sit Through “Big Church”?

John Piper provides some thoughtful advice and provides a free resource to assist you in thinking through this issue.

Plumb Line #14: When Life Cuts Us, We Want to Bleed God’s Word

But if we don’t focus on teaching our people the Bible, what are we doing? How can we possibly say we’re preparing our people for the trials of life? When Satan attacked Jesus, Jesus quoted Scripture. What will your kids comes up with when Satan attacks them? 

6 Ways to Smash the Approval Idol

It’s not approval, then, but the craving of approval that turns dark. It’s the pursuit of praise that comes from men instead of the kind that comes from God. For a lot of us, the struggle is real. 

5 Tips for Career-Seeking College Students

But college isn’t just about books and classes. You shouldn’t wait until you have a diploma in hand to think about your career. In fact, there are loads of things that you can do right now, as a student, to prepare for post-college life.

Parenting in the Age of Binge-Watching

I feel like a class-A hypocrite writing an article on this topic, but we’re not the only ones struggling to get a handle on it, either. Over and over it comes up in counseling sessions, phone calls, messages, and discrete conversations in the halls of the church. What does it mean to rightly parent a child of the “on-demand” generation?

Do we have to choose between the luddite lifestyle of banning technology altogether, or is there a way to make “screen use” a shepherding opportunity?

The Early Bird Gets The Link 

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Are We Physically Healed by Jesus’ Stripes?
Word-Faith charismatic teachers routinely claim that Isaiah 53:5 is proof that physical healing is inherent in the atonement—that it was won by Christ’s physical suffering.

How God Saved Me from the Prosperity Gospel

As my world collapsed, chaotic feelings assailed me. At one point I screamed at God in disappointment that he’d failed me again. I had exercised tremendous faith; how could he let this happen?

The Danger of Selectively Seeing the Scriptures

As humans we have a tendency to hear what we want to hear and see what we want to see. 

Should the Church View Homosexuality Like Divorce?

Don’t most conservative denominations, after all, welcome members who have been divorced into the fellowship? Why do evangelicals single out one sexual teaching over another? Couples divorce, sometimes remarry others, and yet are welcomed within the congregation. We don’t necessarily affirm this as good, but we receive these people with mercy and grace. Why not, the argument goes, do the same with homosexuality?

Lessons from Martha’s Kitchen

I am convinced though that just as Martha has been distracted and missed the very presence of her Savior, so do we miss the very lesson of these scenes by focusing on comparing Martha to her sister, and ignoring the very Savior these verses evolve around. The point of these scenes is not to showcase Martha’s struggles or Mary’s worship, but rather to teach us how Martha’s inadequacies —and those of every other woman for that matter—are met by the self-sufficiency of a perfect Christ!

5 Benefits from Loving My Small Church

As one member of a small church to the many others who may be reading, let’s remember the value of being in our small churches, lest we forget the gift that God has given us.

3 Dangers of Dividing People By Generation

In his new book, Impossible People, Os Guinness fears that generational analysis has devolved into “generationalism,” an overemphasis on the strong differences between the generations at the expense of the commonalities that unite us. After reading his chapter on this issue, I’d like to borrow a few of his insights and build on them here.

The Early Bird Gets The Link 

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A Prayer for the New School Year
Beyond what you do on the campuses and in the classrooms, please be at-work in the hearts and minds of our students and teachers.

On Being Persuasive

Learning how to persuade others winsomely is a skill that needs to be cultivated. As Proverbs 16:23 says, “The heart of the wise makes his speech judicious and adds persuasiveness to his lips.”

How Parenting Flies By

That’s how I feel about being a parent. My oldest daughter heads to college in a matter of days. Just when I felt I was finally getting the hang of being a parent, at least with our oldest, it’s over.

The 5 Worst Beliefs a Christian Parent Can Have in an Imploding Society

Today I want to highlight five of the worst beliefs we can have when our society is spiraling downward.

Religious Liberty, Not Religious Toleration

Religious liberty has been dying a slow death in recent years, and tragically religious leaders have largely been ambivalent. Religious toleration confines one’s faith to their thoughts whereas religious liberty is a commitment to live out one’s faith in every walk of life. 

The Idolatry of Race Part 1

Our created idols will inevitably lead us to idolatry, not to the worship of the one and true living God. And God will judge both the idol and the idolaters unless we repent.

The Early Bird Gets The Link 

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Wayne Grudem recently wrote an article on Why Voting For Trump Is A Morally Good Choice, Phillip Swicegood responds in Why Wayne Grudem is Wrong

Religious Liberty and the Right to be Christian

Moral revolutions require legal revolutions. This is certainly the case with the sexual revolution and its various causes of sexual liberation. A revolution is only complete when the legal structure aligns itself with a new moral understanding. This alignment is exactly what is taking place in American public life on the issue of gay liberation.

You Can Love Ministry and Miss Jesus

What is the greater miracle, that the Spirit removed a demon from another person’s body through you or that he removed you out of hell?

Christianity’s Manhood Problem: An Introduction

Pew Research has found that, on average, Christian congregants across the world skew about 53% female, 46% male. In the U.S., surveys show a split that’s even wider: 61% women to 39% men (the gap occurs in every age category, and is thus not due to the fact that women live longer than men).

So What is Your Vision for this Church?

I know what you’re thinking. What about Proverbs 29:18: “Where there is no vision, the people perish”? Read that verse from another translation other than the King James Version and it will be clear. The proverb teaches that people cast off restrain if there is no divine revelation. It does not teach that people perish if the leader does not cast a vision for the future.

The Early Bird Gets The Link 

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Fear and Faith by Trillia Newbill is only .99 for kindle. 

Why You Should Be Praying the Psalms
I believe that the most simple, permanent, and biblical solution to this almost universal problem is to stop making up your own prayers most of the time—because that results in repetitious prayer—and to pray the Bible instead.

2016 West Coast Conference: Audio and Video Now Available

There is always something good, I am looking forward to listening to the preconference: Digital Disciples

Does Carrying Signs Really Save Babies?

What about the people holding up signs outside of abortion clinics? The signs read “Babies Are Murdered Here.” While you likely agree with the words on the signs as you drive by the people holding them, perhaps they make you feel uncomfortable. “Is this the best way to stop abortion?” “Does it actually work? And even if it does, is there not perhaps a more efficient way to use our time, talents, and treasures to save babies?”

Born This Way

As Christians, how do we respond? This question is crucial. And for many of us it is not abstract, but personally painful. For not only do we live daily engaged in a war of resistance against our own sexual brokenness, but people very precious to us have anguished and struggled over disordered sexual orientations and desires and, not seeing change, have embraced this manifesto. And in our biblical convictions they often hear an unloving rejection of who they believe they are as persons. What do we say to them?

You Are Not Your Sexuality 

This is worth listening to. 

The Early Bird Gets The Link 

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5 Distinguishing Marks of a Fruitful Church
How do you measure this? How do you know if a church is focused on the glory of Jesus Christ? Well, I think you start with the most visible communications. In sermon and song, is Jesus the focal point?

3 Church Methods That Need to Change

In light of modern cultural realities, here are three methodological shifts churches should consider to more effectively make disciples and reach our communities.

Should I Attend a Homosexual Wedding If the Service Is Completely Secular?

Kevin DeYoung provides some helpful wisdom when dealing with this question. 

5 Ways to Read the Bible for Personal Application

Here is a very helpful Gospel lifehack. 

“The Bible was written to others—but speaks to you. The Bible is about God—but draws you in. Your challenge is always to reapply Scripture afresh, because God’s purpose is always to rescript your life.

When we reapply Scripture to our own lives, the Holy Spirit is rescripting our lives so that we may become more like Jesus.”
Good Parents Connect, Not Just Correct

Christian childrearing is not mainly about disciplining the devil out of our children, but joining with God by nourishing his creative and redemptive good at work in our children, and then graciously correcting the incursions of the world, the flesh, and the devil against their growth. And does it ever require self-sacrificial initiative and energy.

Signposts: How Should You Talk to Your Children About Transgender Issues?

In this podcast Dr. Moore provides some helpful guidance and advice when talking to your children about the transgender issue.