Good News for the City
We know that gospel means good news, but what does that mean? The gospel has too often been reduced, personalized, and spiritualized so that it’s merely about acknowledging sin, accepting Christ, and securing a spot in heaven. This is tidy; but it’s not easily found in Paul’s Letter to the Romans. Paul focuses in on a different […]
Four Rules for Christian Friendship
We know integrity when we’re around it, but what does the word “integrity” actually mean? It’s got the same root word as the one found in “integrate,” “integrated,” and “integral.” The idea is wholeness. It’s bringing the parts together into one whole. So, what would a friend with integrity be like? A friend with integrity […]
How to Avoid Dancing Off a Cliff
God redeems the seemingly unredeemable. Taking that hope as my cue, I’m going to try to redeem some time I accidentally spent absorbed in a Paw Patrol episode my kids were watching. Spoiled kid-villain Harold Humdinger was driving a special supervillain vehicle and blaring music from his supersonic sound system. It was so loud that it caused […]
God Is No Respecter of Persons? Dispelling the Myth That God Has Favorites
“God is no respecter of persons.” This is what the apostle Peter concluded when God led him to baptize a Gentile (a non-Jew). Samaritans (Jewish relatives) had been baptized before (Acts 8:4-25), and so had proselytes to Judaism, as was likely an Ethiopian official (Acts 8:26-40). But Peter’s baptism of Cornelius, a Roman centurion, marked […]
Are We There Yet? Here’s an Invitation to Join a Groaning Creation.
Just as we are invited to join all creation in glorifying God, we are also invited to join a groaning creation in crying out to him. Hearing “Are we there yet?” from kids in the backseat had always sounded whiny to me. But this particular evening, I was in the backseat too, wondering how long […]
The Romans 14 Posture as a Guide to Reopening
Our nation is locked in a philosophical civil war over COVID-19. People take strong positions on both sides. And there is one big reality as we release this post: over 1,700,000 Americans are infected with the virus and more 100,000 have died from it to date. That last number alone is very upsetting and disturbing. […]
Baptism is Beautiful
Baptism is probably the most beautiful thing we will witness this side of heaven. I’ve been in the church for a long time, and I’ve heard a lot of sermons on baptism. Most of them go something like this: “The Bible says you should get baptized, so get baptized.” This is true, and we need […]
