Life on Planet Earth on Affairs

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A Roomful of Yearning & Regret

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Writer Wendy Plump wrote a candid, vulnerable article in the NY Times called “A Roomful of Yearning and Regret” (Dec. 9, 2010). In the article she disclosed that both her & her husband had affair...

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The Devils Logic [Part 2 of 2]

Author

Jared C. Wilson

Keywords

Scripture

Hebrews 3:13, 2 Corinthians 11:14, Proverbs 7:21-23, James 1:14-15, Genesis 3:6

If I were making a list of benefits like the one Mike McKinley imagines, only this time using the devil’s actual logic, it might look more like this: Experience the excitement of new romance. Get th...

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Donne, Undone

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

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Scripture

Ephesians 5:31-33, Matthew 19:4-6, Romans 8:28, Proverbs 22:1, 1 Timothy 3:7, Titus 2:7-8, Philippians 2:15, 1 Peter 2:12, Galatians 6:4-5, Daniel 1:17-21

While movies and novels often present stories of a budding love interest willing to give up everything for “true love” (Romeo and Juliet, for example), the renowned poet, and later clergyman, John Don...

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When Scandals Become Blasé

Author

Jonathan K. Dodson

Keywords

Scripture

Hebrews 13:4, Matthew 18:6-10

In his thoughtful book, Our Good Crisis: Overcoming Moral Chaos with the Beatitudes , Jonathan K. Dodson describes what has become a reality of modern-day life-scandals happen every day, and no-one...

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Daughter Cheating?

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

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As a committed Southern Baptist, president Jimmy Carter was often questioned by reporters on a variety of moral issues. One day, a reporter asked, “How would you feel if you were told that your daught...

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Author

Bertrand Russell

Keywords

Assumptions

Scripture

Luke 10:25-37, Acts 17:11, Romans 12:2, James 1:5, Psalm 119:59-60, Psalm 10:1

In all affairs, it’s a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.

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Author

Abraham Lincoln

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I desire to conduct the affairs of this administration in such a way that if at the end, when I come to lay down the reins of power, I have lost every other friend on earth, I shall have at least one ...

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Statistics on Religion in America: The Rise of the None's

Author

JR Woodward

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Scripture

Matthew 7:13-14, 2 Timothy 4:3-4, Luke 18:8, 2 Corinthians 4:3-4, Matthew 24:12-13

In March 2009, we received the results from the widest religious survey conducted in the United States, the ARIS (American Religious Identification Survey) study. There is much to gain from this repor...

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Adapted from Psalm 112

Author

Chip Hardwick

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Scripture

Psalm 112:1-2, Psalm 112:5, Psalm 112:9

Leader: Praise the Lord! Blessed are those who fear the Lord, who greatly delight in his commands. People: their offspring will be mighty in the land; the generation of the upright will be blessed. ...

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Based on I Timothy 4:10 (NEB)

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We have set our hope on you, our living God, as those who set course for home from distant places. But we need your help if we are to keep on course: we need fresh sight of you, on which to check our ...

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The Anatomy of a Crisis: Sermon Illustration Thursday

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

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All crises are judgments of history that call into question an existing state of affairs. They sift and sort the character and condition of a nation and its capacity to respond. The deeper the crisis,...

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Biblical Rigtheousness Goes Beyond the Private

Author

John R. W. Stott

Keywords

Scripture

Micah 6:8, Isaiah 1:16-17, Amos 5:24, Jeremiah 22:3, Zechariah 7:9-10

For biblical righteousness is more than a private and personal affair; it includes social righteousness as well. And social righteousness, as we learn from the law and the prophets, is concerned with ...

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Calling into Question the Status Quo

Author

Os Guinness

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Scripture

James 1:5, Matthew 16:15, Jeremiah 6:16, Psalm 11:3, 2 Chronicles 7:14, Lamentations 3:40, Isaiah 6:5

All crises are judgments of history that call into question an existing state of affairs. They sift and sort the character and condition of a nation and its capacity to respond. The deeper the crisis,...

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Kissing and Telling

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 12:36-37, 1 Corinthians 4:20, Proverbs 27:2

George Augustus Moore was an aristocratic writer, art critic, and dramatist. Influenced by the realist school in France, Moore was particularly influenced by Emile Zola. Ultimately, his writing would ...

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O God, we thank you that you have not

Author

William Barclay

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Scripture

Micah 6:8, Colossians 3:23-24, Psalm 119:105, 1 Corinthians 12:12-14, Lamentations 3:22-23, 1 Samuel 1:24-28, Acts 2:42-47

O God, we thank you that you have not treated us as we deserve. We thank you that, though you are Creator, Judge and King, you are also Father, so that, though we are wandering children, there is alw...

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O Lord and Father of the household of

Author

Hughes Oliphant Old

Scripture

1 Timothy 2:1-2, Galatians 6:2, Romans 12:10, Micah 6:8, James 5:16

O Lord and Father of the household of faith, we thank you for the gift of faith worked within us by your Holy Spirit. We thank you for having called us to yourself, for consecrating us to your ser...

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Author

Ludwig Wittgenstein

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“I know” seems to describe a state of affairs which guarantees what is known, guarantees it as a fact. One always forgets the expression, “I thought I knew.

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Author

Hannah Whitall Smith

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The greatest burden we have to carry in life is self. The most difficult thing we have to manage is self. Our own daily living, our frames and feelings, our especial weaknesses and temptations, and ou...

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Mr. Average Man

Author

Hal Donaldson

Keywords

In 1965 Billy Graham wrote a bestselling book titled World on Fire. In it, he wrote, “Mr. Average Man is comfortable in his complacency and as unconcerned as a silverfish ensconced in a carton of disc...

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Is Repetition Good or Bad?

Author

Vigen Guroian

Keywords

Repetition

Chesterton observes that when we grow up we tend to think that repetition as a sign of deadness, “like a piece of clockwork. People feel that if the universe were personal it would vary, if the sun we...

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Author

Søren Kierkegaard

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Of all ridiculous things the most ridiculous seems to me, to be busy — to be a man who is brisk about his food and his work. Therefore, whenever I see a fly settling, in the decisive moment, on the no...

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Author

Philip Graham Ryken

Keywords

Temptation

Scripture

James 1:13

The fact that [God] does not tempt us (Jas. 1:13) does not mean that our temptations are somehow outside of His control. God is sovereign over all the affairs of life, including every temptation to si...

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Traversing a Timeless Biblical Demand & Our Particular Place and Time

Author

Tim Muehlhoff and Richard Langer

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During the 1992 presidential election, I (Rick) was directing the small group ministry at our church. Bill Clinton was running against George H. W. Bush, and given that many evangelicals found Bill Cl...

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The Practicality of Belief in God

Author

Ron Highfield

Keywords

In his June 1749 letter to Voltaire, the French Atheist Denis Diderot famously ruled that is is “very important not to mistake the hemlock for parsley; but to believe or not believe in God, is not imp...

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Author

Thomas More

Keywords

Morality

Man cannot be separated from God, nor can the affairs of state be separated from morality.

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The Dickensian Approach to Storytelling (Or, Rather, the Biblical Approach)

Author

Mark D. Roberts

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 1:, John 1:1-3

Sometimes great stories introduce the protagonist in the very first paragraph. In Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations, for example, we are immediately introduced to Pip, the central figure of the nov...

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How God Speaks

Author

Dan Gilliam

Keywords

Scripture

Psalm 46:10

While there is a common assumption in church circles that God speaks most frequently and the clearest through singing worship and heart-enlivened sermons, I find the context of speechless tranquility ...

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The Changing Landscape of Ministry

Author

Tod E. Bolsinger

Keywords

Scripture

Psalm 126:5-6, 2 Corinthians 1:3-4, 2 Timothy 4:5, Romans 12:2, Joshua 1:9, Isaiah 55:10-11, Galatians 6:9

In this short excerpt, professor and pastor Tod Bolsinger describes how the changing world of ministry (in the West) has led some pastors to simply give up trying: About twelve years ago, I heard a ...

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Nowhere to Hide

Author

Timothy Keller

Keywords

Scripture

Jeremiah 17:9, Psalm 41:9, Proverbs 14:12, Matthew 23:27-28, Luke 12:2-3

To me one of the most terrifying scenes in all of literature is in Arthur Miller’s play Death of a Salesman . Willy Loman is a traveling salesman who feels that he is largely a failure. His self-pity...

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Author

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Keywords

Scripture

James 4:13-15, John 9:41, Romans 11:33, Isaiah 55:8-9, Ecclesiastes 11:5, Job 38:2-4

“I know” seems to describe a state of affairs which guarantees what is known, guarantees it as a fact. One always forgets the expression, “I thought I knew.”

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