Faith and Work on Religious Persecution

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Flourishing Faith in Persecuted Places

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Keywords

Scripture

Daniel 6:16-23, Jeremiah 29:4-7, Genesis 39:20-23, Acts 16:25-34, Matthew 5:10-12 , Psalm 23:4

On Christmas Eve in Tehran, house-church pastor Farshid Fatah and his family were awakened to the frightening sounds of the Iranian security police pounding at their door. After the police searched hi...

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The Hand will Be the First to Burn

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

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Scripture

Daniel 3:, Job 1:, Matthew 10:32-33, 2 Timothy 1:7, Psalm 31:24

Thomas Cranmer (1489–1556), the archbishop of Canterbury from 1532 to 1556, played a pivotal role in the English Reformation. A key figure in Henry VIII’s break with the Roman Catholic Church, Cranmer...

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The First to Burn

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Scripture

Daniel 3:16–18, 2 Chronicles 33:10–13 , Isaiah 50:7, Luke 22:61–62, Psalm 51:10–13 , 1 Peter 3:11-17

Facing imminent death, Thomas Cranmer—the Archbishop of Canterbury who crafted the foundational Book of Common Prayer for Anglican worship—succumbed to terror and signed a document renouncing hi...

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The Story of Eric Liddell

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

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Eric Liddell, the “Flying Scotsman” was made famous by the 1981 movie Chariots of Fire . He was born to missionary parents in China in 1902 and educated in the United Kingdom. Though he made the Bri...

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Religious Faith in the Workplace? The Resistance May Not Be What You Think

Author

John C. Knapp

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More often than not, park-it-at-the-door thinking [about religious faith] has less to do with hostility to faith than with the avoidance of risk, for many employer’s fear that any hint of religion is ...

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Remembering the Martyred Saints

Author

Ben Lansing and D. J.Marotta

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Scripture

Daniel 3:16–18, Daniel 6:19–22, Acts 7:54–60, Hebrews 11:35–38, Psalm 116:15

Two thousand years ago, Christians were often hunted down and killed. Amid this darkness, the church began a radical practice. When a brother or sister was martyred for faith in Jesus, the Christian c...

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A Mischief to Religion

Author

Joseph Glanvill

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Anti-Intellectualism has been a problem in the church for some time now. Consider the words of the 17th century English clergyman Joseph Glanvill, who had this to say about the role of reason in faith...

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Grace & Guilt

Author

Paul Tournier

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Scripture

Genesis 3:1-24, Isaiah 6:1-8, Genesis 50:15-21, John 8:1-11, Luke 15:11-32, Psalm 51:1-17

In Guilt and Grace , Swiss physician and Christian, Paul Tournier, writes… I cannot study this very serious problem of guilt with you without raising the very obvious and tragic fact that rel...

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Author

Tim Muehlhoff & Richard Langer

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Scripture

Numbers 12:1-2, 1 Kings 12:16-20, Matthew 18:15-17, 1 Corinthians 1:10-13 , James 4:1-3, Psalm 133:1

We may have more disagreements with nonbelievers, but our disagreements with fellow believers are more problematic and more emotionally charged.

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Author

James Boice

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Scripture

Exodus 5:1–2, Matthew 2:16, Acts 16:16–24, Psalm 2:1–2, Acts 16:16–24, Psalm 2:1–2

Nothing good has ever come into the world without opposition, and that is especially true in spiritual matters.

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Author

Cotton Mather

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Religion begat prosperity and the daughter devoured the mother.

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In the early fifth century, even as Rome

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Scripture

Exodus 23:2, Daniel 3:16-18, 2 Chronicles 24:20-21, Matthew 5:9-10, Romans 12:19-21 , Psalm 82:3-4

In the early fifth century, even as Rome had officially embraced Christianity, the brutal spectacle of gladiatorial combat continued in the Colosseum, drawing massive crowds. One day, a Christian herm...

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How to Face Massive Challenges: Advice from John Wesley

Author

A. J. Swoboda

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Scripture

Exodus 3:7–10 , Isaiah 41:10 , Nehemiah 6:9, Galatians 6:9, Romans 8:31 , Psalm 27:1

On February 24, 1791, Christian revivalist and pastor John Wesley penned a letter to encourage a Christian walking through some faith challenges: Unless the divine power has raised you up . . . I...

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Why It can be So Hard to Express Christian Convictions Civilly

Author

Tim Muehlhoff & Richard Langer

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Scripture

Daniel 3:16-18, 1 Kings 18:21, Isaiah 55:8-9 , Romans 14:5-8, Psalm 119:105, Matthew 7:15-16

First, most Christians attach their convictions to Christ personally. In other words, we form our convictions in order to please Jesus, not ourselves. Convictions do not express what we think or feel ...

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Excluding Sinners is Excluding God

Author

Brennan Manning

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Scripture

Luke 19:7, Matthew 21:31, John 1:11, Luke 7:34, Mark 2:17

There is a story of a public sinner who was excommunicated and forbidden from entering the church, He took his woes to God. "They won't let me in, Lord, because I am a sinner." "W...

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Living Faith Through Selfless Service

Author

Oscar A. Romero

Keywords

Scripture

Isaiah 53:4-5, 1 Samuel 17:, 1 John 12:24-25, Matthew 16:25, Psalm 116:15

Whoever seeks to avoid danger at all costs may ultimately lose the fullness of life, but the one who, out of love for Christ, dedicates themselves to serving others discovers a life that endures. Arch...

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Are People in the West Abandoning Faith or Just the Church?

Author

David Zahl

Keywords

Scripture

Exodus 32:1-4 , 1 Kings 18:21, Jeremiah 2:13, Romans 1:25, Psalm 115:4-8, Acts 17:22-23

In this excerpt, author David Zahl challenges the common belief that religion is “in decline.” He argues that while Westerners, particularly younger generations, may be distancing themselves from the ...

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Sabbath-Keeping and Legalism

Author

Walter Brueggemann

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 2:1-3, Exodus 20:8-11, Deuteronomy 5:12-15, Mark 2:27-28, Matthew 12:8, Luke 6:5

For the most part, contemporary Christians pay little attention to the Sabbath. We more or less know that the day came to reflect, in U.S. culture, the most stringent disciplinary faith of the Puritan...

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Myths About Faith and Work

Author

Kara Martin

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Scripture

1 Peter 2:12, Genesis 2:15-20, Colossians 3:22-24, John 5:17, 1 Corinthians 7:17

Myths about Faith and Work Faith is to be lived out 24-7-52. For many Christians this involves living out our faith at work. But several myths about faith and work can prevent us from being effecti...

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“Respecting” Religion by Making it Private

Author

Nancy Pearcey

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Scripture

Exodus 5:1–2, 1 Kings 18:21–39, Daniel 3:16–18, Matthew 5:14–16, Acts 4:19–20, Psalm 2:1–2, 10–12

Most secularists are too politically savvy to attack religion directly or to debunk it as false. So what do they do? They consign religion to the value sphere—which takes it out of the realm of true a...

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The Evangelist Wasting his Time

Author

Richard J. Mouw

Keywords

Scripture

Proverbs 25:11, Ecclesiastes 3:7, Isaiah 50:4, 1 Peter 3:15, Colossians 4:5–6, Psalm 19:14

As a college student, I was returning to school one year on a Greyhound bus. One of the other passengers was a middle-aged man who seemed to be making the rounds, engaging various people in quiet conv...

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Adapted from the Parable of the Sower

Author

Dustin Ray

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Scripture

Matthew 13:18-23, Jeremiah 17:8, Colossians 3:16, Hebrews 4:12, Psalm 119:11

Pastor: “Hear then the parable of the sower: When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. This is what wa...

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Author

Christianity Today

Keywords

Scripture

Deuteronomy 6:6-7 , Proverbs 22:6, Joshua 24:15, Matthew 19:13-14 , Ephesians 6:4, Psalm 78:4-7

About 2 out of 3 American adults who regularly attend church or other religious services say they go for their kids.

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Don’t Professionalize Pastoral Ministry

Author

Frederick Buechner

Keywords

Scripture

1 Kings 19:4, Jeremiah 12:1-3, Matthew 11:28-30, 2 Corinthians 4:7-10, Psalm 42:1-5

Ministers run the awful risk . . . of ceasing to be witnesses to the presence in their own lives — let alone in the lives of the people they are trying to minister to — of a living God who transcends ...

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An Unlikely Story of Redemption

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Scripture

2 Kings 5:1–14, Isaiah 53:4–5, Exodus 15:26, Mark 2:1–12, John 11:25–26, Psalm 103:2–3

David (Yonggi) Cho would go on to lead what is recognized as the largest church in the world (the Yoido Full Gospel Church), but his spiritual journey began far from Christianity. Raised as a Buddhist...

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Liddell’s Sabbath Exception

Author

Randy Alcorn

Keywords

Randy Alcorn relates meeting Margaret Holder, born to missionary parents in China and interned by the Japanese with Eric Liddell, the “Flying Scotsman,” whose story is featured in Chariots of Fire . ...

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Doing Rather Than Being

Author

A. J. Swoboda

Keywords

Sabbath is that ancient idea and practice of intentional rest that has long been discarded by much of the church and our world. Sabbath is not new. Sabbath is just new to us. Historically, Christians ...

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A Savior Who Was a Spitter

Author

Steve Arterburn and Jack Felton

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 2:21–23, Exodus 3:7–10, Isaiah 55:10–11, John 9:1–7 , Acts 10:34–35 , Psalm 19:3–4

Some time ago, I read about the work of a Wycliffe Bible translator in a remote village in Papua New Guinea. When the opening chapters of Genesis were first translated into the native language, the at...

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Understanding The Nature of Prayer

Author

James Boice

Keywords

Scripture

2 Chronicles 7:14, 1 Samuel 1:9-20, Isaiah 64:6, Luke 18:9-14 , John 14:13-14, Psalm 51:17

I remember a story that R. A. Torrey told, growing out of a series of meetings he had held in Melbourne, Australia. He had been speaking on prayer. One day just before a noon meeting a note was placed...

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The Aroma of that Room

Author

Dallas Willard

Keywords

Scripture

Exodus 3:1-6, Isaiah 6:1-8, Acts 9:1-9, Matthew 4:18-22, 1 Samuel 3:1-10

Sometimes, of course, the sense of God with us becomes much more distinct. My oldest brother, J. I. Willard, served for over thirty years as a minister under the blessing of God. But his entry into th...

faith and work on Religious Persecution

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