Today I’m on my way for a quick trip to Dallas to do a video shoot for The Gospel Project (we have a cool event coming up that you’ll want to check out). But I still have links to share!

A Tip For Reading an Old Testament Quotation

Mike Leake:

“What’s your favorite Old Testament Bible verse?”

Do you realize that’s a question the biblical authors would have never been able to answer? They didn’t have Bible verses. That was something invented only about 500 years ago. They had various methods for drawing attention to which section of the Bible they were discussing. As an example, they would frequently quote part of a Psalm in order to point to the entire thing. This is likely, in part, what Jesus was doing when he quoted Psalm 22 from the Cross.

Four People Exposed by Jesus’ Trial

JD Greear:

As you might expect, Tansie’s case was thrown out. But what was humorously ironic in Tansie’s situation is tragically evident in the actual trial of Jesus. Humanity puts Jesus on trial, but in the end, it is humanity that is truly convicted.

The Apostle Matthew plays up this connection perhaps better than any of the other Gospel writers. Through his narrative, we see several characters involved in Jesus’ trial that represent us.

The Good Part — Preparing for Old Age and Death

Diane Bucknell:

My boomer generation has a serious problem with denial when it comes to aging and death. It’s driven, in part, by our culture’s worship of youth and beauty—60 is the new 40 and all that nonsense. I think advancements in modern medicine that prolong the inevitable has also contributed. Additionally, death has become so sanitized in western society that many people may never even see a dead person in their lifetime. More than ever before, we have been anesthetized to the reality that life is but a vapor and what we do in our short stay here will have eternal consequences.

Pastor Fear

Dayton Hartman:

Pastor, the things we all fear most (chaos, works of the enemy, even death itself), all fear Jesus. Recently, I told our congregation that it may sound cheesy but it is, in fact, true: If you personified all the things you lay awake at night afraid of, know that they all lay awake afraid of Jesus.

How the Resurrection Reshapes Success and Regret

Jonathan Dodson:

If you had definitive proof of an afterlife, how would you respond? If you knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, you’d enter another life after you die, what would you do? Would you pull the trigger?

Sacred Domain: How to Keep the .Bible Holy

Kate Shellnut:

Ongoing net neutrality debates reveal the tensions between the Internet’s open-source, free access ideals and the commercial or private forces behind the web. The debate extended into the internet’s officially biblical realm—the .bible domain—in a recent dispute over its faith-based standards.

Some Bible scholars accused the American Bible Society (ABS) of unfairly restricting use of the top-level domain, which it secured a contract to run as an administrator back in 2013.

Joy is always mixed with sorrow

A favorite from the archives:

I say tempting because that’s what it is. Tempting. But I find that, as easy as it might be, I can’t lose heart. I don’t want to give in to this temptation.

Instead, I find that I have to reconcile the fact that in this world, joy will always be mixed with sorrow. On Sunday, we celebrated the resurrection with our church family. I played with the kids. We had pancakes for dinner.  I read three chapters of The Last Battle with my middle daughter. It was, by all accounts, a good day.

But at the same time as I was enjoying my day, and giving thanks for the blessings I’ve enjoyed, I found myself grieving with those who had lost their loved ones. Their mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters.