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Young Ministers Need Older Encouragers
In Titus 2:6-7 the Apostle Paul writes these words: “Similarly, encourage the young men to be self-controlled. In everything set them an example by doing what is good.” Earlier this year, I attended the funeral for a man named Paul Ayers. He was 94 years old. He wasn’t famous or even very well-known outside a 20-mile...
David Upchurch
Lessons from the Church in Kenya: Members or Disciples?
Q1: You were in America for 10 years and now you are back in Kenya. Were you encouraged by what you saw in the American church? I was there for ten years and what saddened me most was to see the lukewarmness in the American church. And part of the reason is that the working...
Stephen Muhota
Racism Cuts Deep: Part 1 of a Conversation with Anthony Walker
*Editors’ Note: With some of the horrific recent stories of infuriating injustice done toward African Americans (e.g., Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd), I wanted to reach out to my friend Anthony Walker, an African American minister at a church in Murfreesboro, TN. We should all be feeling grief over these losses, and we need to hear...
When God Is Silent
~ This will be available for a limited time!~ We inhabit the same world Jesus did—one of pain, joy, surprise, suffering, and wonder. At times life is good, joyous, and fair. At other times it’s dreary, unfair, and hard. We…
Douglas Jacoby
Promise Keepers & Stories of Changed Lives
*Editor’s Note: David Roadcup was one of the founding architects of Promise Keepers. In this series, David shares some of the amazing things God did through the movement. The manager of a large business had an employee who had left his wife and moved in to live with his secretary. Several weeks later, the employee’s...
David Roadcup
It’s Unchristian to Hate America
Polarization is nothing new for the United States. Remember the Federalists VS the anti-Federalists? The Whigs VS Democrats? Even today’s divide between Democrats and Republicans goes all the way back to 1854. In fact, today’s divide is relatively calm compared to 1854, the year when anti-slavery northerners founded the Republican Party 7 years before the...
Daniel McCoy
Covenant
What is a covenant? In English the word usually means an “agreement” or “a written contract.” But what did the word mean in Greek—specifically in the original Greek New Testament? When Paul and others wrote about God’s covenant with humans, there were two Greek words from which to choose: syntheke (soon THAY kay) and diatheke (dee...
Kenny Boles
Pigs and Dogs: What is Jesus Talking About?
What’s with the pigs and the dogs? Taken by itself, Matt. 7:6 is a weird thing to say: “Don’t give holy things to dogs, don’t throw your pearls to pigs, lest they trample them under their feet and, turning, tear you to pieces” (author’s translation). If this is a stand-alone verse, then we just have...
Jeremy Bacon
Gender Roles: Where to Begin
Last October at a “Truth Matters Conference,” John MacArthur was being honored for his 50 years of ministry. At one point, MacArthur and a group of other panelists were asked to play a word association game, where they were to give 2 words in reaction to the words they were given. The first 2 words...
Vance Russell
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Q: Fearless or Fearful? Jesus’ Answer Is Confusing.
I have found myself confused by Jesus’ teaching on fear. There’s an excerpt from one of His sermons in which He basically says this: “Don’t be afraid. Be afraid. Don’t be afraid.” It’s as if this part of the sermon were a movie directed scene-by-scene first by Mr. Rogers, then by Alfred Hitchcock, then by...
Daniel McCoy
The Gospel Coalition, Matthew Bates, and Renew.org
This is one of the most in-depth posts we have written so far explaining the distinctive purpose of Renew.org. Thank you in advance for taking the time to carefully read it. Can we just start by mentioning how grateful we are for The Gospel Coalition? What a valuable group of men and women who are...
Renew.org
The Book of Job: A Guide in Suffering (Part 2)
(For Part 1, click here.) One of the tough parts about understanding Job’s story is figuring out which voices to trust. We have the narrator, God, Satan, Job, Job’s wife, the three friends (Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar), along with a fourth friend Elihu, who is the last to speak before God interjects. I find it...
Luke Gray
Could You Be a Church Planter?
In Act 1:8 Jesus offers His disciples this strategy for spreading his good news: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” What is Jesus telling his disciples to do?...
Sean Cronin
3 Steps for Choosing Obedience When You Suffer
When I contemplate human suffering, two words come to mind: lamb stew. One winter evening I joined a friend in her home for dinner. I looked forward to it as her cultured culinary skills always made our shared suppers delightful and delicious. We sat down to an elegant table setting. She served the main course....
Julia Martin
Satanic Imagery in the Bible
In a previous article, I laid out some of the information we find about Satan in the Old Testament. We looked at the serpent in Genesis 3, in the book of Job, and elsewhere in the Old Testament. In this part, we will look at the information in apocryphal literature, which we do not consider...
Jonathan Lichtenwalter
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