3 Destructive Effects of Comparison

Michael Kelley:

Thanks to social media, our “Jones’s” are anyone, anywhere, at any time. We have at our fingertips the means of comparing our lifestyles, our children, or the lighting of our framed photos with millions, the vast majority of whom we’ve never met. So while we have always had the compulsion inside us to compare ourselves to others, the difference is that we now have the ability to compare ourselves to a far greater extent than we ever have before. Not only that, but comparison is something that just sort of creeps into our consciousness; we don’t necessarily intend to gauge our self-worth or identity based on how we measure up with others – but because we are constantly surrounded with the images of the best lives of others, it’s nearly inevitable that it happens.

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Applying biblical principles to immigration reform

Regardless of your views on immigration, hopefully you’ll agree that there are some good points in this.

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How is God Different Than His Creation?

Superman Can’t Share the Gospel

Ronni Kurtz:

While it may seem a silly mental exercise, try to imagine Superman sharing the gospel. Imagine that from the lips of the Man of Steel comes the news of the Man of Sorrows. Those listening would hear the news of the suffering servant, who came in the needy form of a baby, needing to grow in strength and stature, born to humble means, in a humble town, to humble parents. They’d hear of this Jesus of Nazareth, who wandered around with a band of unimpressive friends, who would one day be charged and sentenced to death. They’d hear how he was hung between two scoundrels and even those who dared called him friend in his life deserted him in his death. They’d hear about how he was beaten, torn, and mocked until his last breath.

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Does Your Church Offer Weak Community?

Barry Cooper:

What do you do if membership at your church is on the wane? Or what if membership doesn’t seem to be growing at the desired rate?

It can seem self-evident that the right course of action is to make it easier to become a church member. What if there were fewer doctrines to which people had to give assent? What if, once someone became a member, we asked less of them in terms of their responsibilities to other members? It seems obvious: if you lower the cost, more will buy. In fact, what if we just ditched the idea of membership altogether?

We Are Not Omni-Anything

Allyson Todd:

The first couple took the gift of perfect community with God and sold it for a curse. From that day until now, and for every day until Jesus returns, we roam the earth, searching for anyone and anything to fill the God-shaped hole in us.
We long for community, and we long to be like God. We want omni-autonomy and omni-presence in our relationships. Omni-autonomy is our desire to be individuals, not bound by another, and wholly separate from others. We want to be like God. Omni-presence is our desire to be everywhere, not bound by place or time, and wholly accessible to others. We want to be like God.

Yet we are not omni-anything.

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Is God Involved in Our Lives?

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“God is on his throne, everything is going his way, and he loves me”

David McLemore:

I had a friend who used to answer a common question in an uncommon way. He has since moved to another city, but his response has never left me. For a long time, when I would ask how he was, he gave a three-fold response:

“God is on his throne, everything is going his way, and he loves me.”

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What Jesus Says About Sexuality in a #MeToo Age

Sam Allberry:

But while Jesus is targeting the person doing the looking, it’s worth noticing what he’s saying by implication about the person being seen. She is not to be looked at or even thought about lustfully. Again, Jesus is not solely concerned with physical boundaries, but mental ones. Clearly this warning applies to both sexes. But, given the prevalence of sexual assault by men against women, it is significant that the scenario describes a man looking lustfully at a woman. Jesus is saying that she is precious and valuable; she has sexual dignity, which should be honored by everyone else. This sexual dignity is so precious to Jesus that it must not be violated, even in the privacy of someone else’s mind.

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C. S. Lewis’s Last Written Word: We Have No Right to Happiness

Trevin Wax shares Lewis’ opinion piece for the Saturday Evening Post called “We Have No Right to Happiness.”

Tolerance Trouble

Jim Elliff:

To this day, religious leaders are often the most outspoken advocates of aberrant sexual tolerance in the churches. Tolerance, which is expected for the various amoral opinions and practices of those within the band of authentic churches, is stretched to include sinful behavior that is obviously (and sadly) indicative of an unregenerate state.

Tolerance on this level is the new gospel.

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Brothers, We Are Not Talking Heads

Erik Raymond:

Dear brother pastors, why have we become so compelled to let everyone know what we think about so many issues peripheral to our calling?

Realizing that neither consuming news nor processing how to think through it biblically is wrong or unwise, I want to gently encourage ministers to pump the brakes on what they react to online. Below are a few reasons why.

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How do we know the Bible isn’t full of errors?

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Freedom, Limits, and the ‘Right’ to Happiness

Trevin Wax:

The commonsense wisdom of our day says that we have a “right” to happiness and freedom as we define it (so long as our freedoms don’t hinder the freedoms of others). But when we expand our understanding of freedom in this way, or turn happiness into a right instead of a gift, we find ourselves out of line with the Bible’s perspective on the world.

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The Vertical and Horizontal Cross

Nick Batzig:

When men pervert or deny the biblical teaching concerning the vertical nature of the cross, it inevitably leads to a false gospel. When men put horizontal aspects of the cross in the place of the vertical, it ultimately leads to a false gospel. We must diligently study the biblical teaching about the work of Jesus—especially with regard to what is foundational (vertical) and what is consequential (horizontal). We must also be students of the historical development of the doctrine of the atonement and its related dimensions. In this short series, we will consider the historical development and the biblical teaching about the vertical and horizontal dimensions of the cross in order to emphasize that the vertical must have precedence over the horizontal dimensions. 

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