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John Wants to Be Jane: 3 Ways to Counsel a Gender-Confused Child

While Christian parents can’t affirm their child’s misplaced desires, they have a God-given responsibility to lovingly help their child through a real struggle with gender identity. Rather than being bewildered into ineffectiveness, parents can proactively care for their child in at least three basic ways.

Wisely Handling the Book of Proverbs

Still, we must be very careful in how we approach and implement these wise sayings. Simply because they are inspired does not mean that the biblical proverbs are like laws, imposing a universal obligation. Yet, some people treat them as if they were divine commandments. If we regard them in that way, we run into all kinds of trouble. Even divinely inspired proverbs do not necessarily apply to all life situations. Rather, they reflect insights that are generally true.

How To Be Lonely (To The Glory Of God)

This matters. If the God of creation was lonely within creation, like a lonely sparrow on the housetop while on the cross, then all of loneliness’ weapons are repurposed and reforged into hammers that God uses to build his people together. Here are two lies that this truth debunks:

Don’t Use ‘Calling’ to Avoid Serving

We are not called to use people in our church for ourglory, but to serve them for God’s glory. Rather than using the idea of “calling” and “gifts” to make excuses for why we can’t serve a subset of church members, we should be exhorting one another to take risks in loving and serving others even when it stretches us outside of our comfort zone.  

The Power Over Christian Publishing We’ve Given To Amazon

The upshot is that as Christians we have given a great deal of power over Christian publishing to the distinctly non-Christian Amazon. What can we do about it? To be honest, I’m not too sure. It may be too late. Obviously we can and should choose to support good Christian booksellers, and be willing to pay at least a small premium to buy from them. This premium isn’t just being nice Christians, but is a means of showing that we want them to continue to have some influence over the writing, publishing, and distribution of valuable, Bible-based resources.

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When Someone You Admire Abandons the Faith

Every de-conversion is a tragedy. But it can also serve to remind us that we serve a God who is greater than our life-plans and our willpower. Not everyone who says “Lord, Lord” will inherit the kingdom of God. What an awful truth. But we should also remember that not everyone who goes to a far country in a time of famine will turn out, in the end, to be absent from the party at the Father’s house.

Five Ways God Can Use Your Stress for Great Good

A while back I shared some things I’ve written about how God uses stress in our lives with some guys I’ve been mentoring. It was timely for me both then and now, because I’m in a time of stress, and indeed God is using it!

Love Your Wife Like Jesus Loves Her: Ten Great Loves for Every Husband

My pastor read to us, “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church” (Ephesians 5:25). Then he asked us the obvious question (the question we husbands so often fail to ask in the daily grind of work and family life): How does Jesus love the church?

Who Was Theophilus?

Who was this person, and how does knowing help us to understand the purpose of Luke and Acts?

Men, It’s Time to Step Up

In our day, we have a lot of men in the church who are “hanging back by the ships” when they ought to be leading out in the fight. They are not bad guys. They are just complementarian couch potatoes, so to speak.

For example, the International Mission Board says that for volunteers going to hard places, those countries closed to the gospel, female applicants outnumber males four to one. Praise God for these women of courage! But where are the men?

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The Economy Is about More than Money

The economy is not just money. It’s the complex system of choices we make about all our resources (including money), all our time, and all our standing in the eyes of others. Every choice we make throughout the day that involves managing these resources is an economic choice.

Peculiar Passages: The Case of Ruth, Boaz and the Contractual Sandal

One of my favourite phrases in the Old Testament is “kinsman-redeemer”*. It comes up several times in the book of Ruth, along with some weird things about sandals and uncovering feet. If we unpack those verses, we not only find out what’s going on in Ruth, but also learn something wonderful about the Lord Jesus.

Common Christian Myths About Happiness

Happiness is what we all want, and believers throughout the centuries, like Brooks and Wesley, have affirmed that it is a good desire when we seek it in Christ. Unfortunately, countless modern Christians have been taught various myths about happiness.

The Key to Understanding Head Coverings

In keeping with the preeminence of the gospel in Paul’s writings in general, and in 1 Corinthians in particular, our interest in this present essay is to revisit the text of 1 Corinthians 10:31–11:16 with the gospel as the interpretive key to Paul’s argument [about gender, head coverings, and the Trinity]. As will become evident, seeing the explicit manner in which Paul appeals to the gospel in this passage serves to strengthen the standard evangelical reading of 1 Corinthians 11 while putting it in its larger gospel context.

Eugene Peterson said that hesed love—the word used to describe the love that David has for Jonathan and Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan—sees behind or beneath whatever society designates a person to be (disabled, option limiting, costly, etc.) and instead acts to affirm a God-created identity in the person. In other words, Peterson is saying that to be human is to carry intrinsic value and dignity.

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Missing Elements in Our Discussions about Apostasy

Much of this happened when I was on vacation and deliberately taking some time away from writing. This removed my opportunity to offer a hot take—something I’m actually thankful for—so perhaps we ought to consider this my cold take. I know much has already been said and said well, but as I’ve caught up with the many articles and podcasts, I think there are a few missing elements that would be helpful to discuss.

On the Issues: Social Gospel

https://youtu.be/Gqd5mfpSNe8

What Unlikely Converts Can Teach Us About Evangelism (and Ourselves)

Coming to Christ takes time. If there’s one lesson that permeates Newman’s research, it’s this: people generally accept the gospel gradually. This isn’t to argue against conversion as a work of the Spirit at a point in time. But it’s a recognition that the Spirit often opens blinded eyes through a series of events. He tends to do so through the witness of believers over a period of weeks, months, even years.

Lemuel Haynes on Voting When the Options are Evil

Interesting.

When Prayer Makes Anxiety Worse

Sidestepping true thanksgiving leads to a cocktail of other sins including self-centered grumbling, cynicism, coveting the situations of others, entitlement, and ultimately unbelief. These are all the opposite of thankfulness.

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What is a forensic faith?

Peculiar Passages: The Case of Paul and the Unexpected Handkerchief

This series has been very informative and helpful. “What do you do when you’re ill? Take two aspirin and lie down until you feel better? Go to see your doctor? Ask someone to pray for you? Maybe even all of those. But my guess is that you don’t wait for someone to bring you a special apron…“

Life Lessons from Habbakuk

I love the Minor Prophets. I think they are the hidden gems of the Old Testament. I recently preached on Habakkuk as part of a series on the Minor Prophets in which we’re seeking to draw out what we can learn from these books about God and the gospel. But as I read and digested Habakkuk, I was struck afresh by what a useful resource it is for those facing suffering. Here are a few life lessons I think we can draw from Habakkuk.

3 Reasons We Need to Have Hard Conversations

We see hard conversations in the Bible. Three young men spoke firmly by refusing to bow to the king (Daniel 3). Nehemiah had a hard conversation with Sanballat and Geshem (Nehemiah 6:3). Paul confronted Peter (Galatians 1:14).

These texts tell us hard conversations can be great opportunities. Here are three things edifying things that can come out of them.

Jen Wilkin’s Pop Quiz on the Bible

So, how did you do?

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Why Satan Is No Friend of the Family

Today I just want to add this to the mix: If family truly comes from the mind of God and plays such an essential role in his world, don’t you think this explains why there are so many attacks on the family? It’s pretty clear that Satan is going to be no friend of the family. Think about all that Satan can disrupt if he disrupts family.

How to Navigate Youth Sports as Christ Followers

When sports are a tool, we can use them to disciple our kids toward Christ instead of something that pulls them away from Christ.

3 Ways Baptism & the Lord’s Supper Ought to Shape our Monday through Saturday

The Bible, however, paints a very different portrait for how the ordinances function in the life of the church. Let me submit three ways the Bible shows us how the ordinances should shape our relationships with one another, both on Sundays and throughout the week.

What Does It Mean for a Man to Lead His Family Spiritually?

So, the way I define a husband’s leadership — or headship — as God wills it is this: a sense of benevolent responsibility to lead, protect, and provide for his wife. 

9 Things You Should Know About the Manson Family Cult

This week marks the 50th anniversary of the gruesome Tate-LaBianca Murders, which were carried out by a group that has become known as the Manson Family. The killings in the summer of 1969 had a transformative effect on America. As Joan Didion wrote in her essay “The White Album,” “Many people I know in Los Angeles believe that the Sixties ended abruptly on August 9, 1969, ended at the exact moment when word of the murders on Cielo Drive traveled like brushfire through the community, and in a sense this is true. The tension broke that day. The paranoia was fulfilled.”

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You Are Not the Author of Your Story

Better than anything impressive that you could accomplish in this life, your life story is a biography of wisdom and grace written by Another. Every twist of the plot is for the best. Every turn he writes into your story is right. Every new character or unexpected event is a tool of his grace. Each new chapter advances his purpose.

Where Did Satan’s First Desire for Evil Come From?

At this point I am disagreeing with that description of me, and I am saying, “No, I am not driven to say God gave Lucifer his first desire to sin. That is an oversimplification of virtually everybody’s viewpoint. I do not know how Lucifer came to feel his first inclination to rebel against God.”

God’s Grace Makes Some People Worship

Let God’s grace lead you to worship. Once you get a taste of God’s grace, you will spend the rest of your life coming back to this question: “Why me?” And you will never get a better answer than this: “He has set His love on me!” 

The Great Century of Missions Ended Over a Century Ago: Will Our Age Be the Great Century of Omission?

It’s becoming clear that our churches in North America, and perhaps the Western world as well, have lost their once fervent passion for missions work. The great stories of global gospel proclamation we share are becoming more and more of an anathema.

An Open Letter to Someone Considering Renouncing their Faith

I will admit I write as someone who embraces Christianity. But I also write as someone who admires the courage of those who puts their sincere questions into words and refuse to “pretend until they break.” I use the word pretend here to mean “pretend they don’t have questions” and not “pretend they are a Christian.”

Peculiar Passages: The Case of the Failed Miracle

What is going on here? Why, when every other time Jesus heals immediately, does he need to, effectively do it twice? Was Jesus having an off day? Was he tired from the travelling, or did he “do it wrong” somehow? Perplexing… 

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