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Reading the Bible: Examining Each Leaf
Martin Luther said that every Christian ought to read the Bible from cover to cover every year. But, likening the Bible to a forest, he also said that reading the Bible doesn’t become really enjoyable... -
Quote
I was told that our worship services should be designed with seekers in mind, and that unchurched people have neither the attention span nor the interest to give to the reading of Bible passages. The ... -
lectionary
Sixth Sunday of Easter
Summary The Text: 1 Peter 3:13-22 In the first chapter of this letter, Peter sets out the reason for writing. He affirms the eternal state of the believer: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lo... -
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The Power of Words
WORDS. We think words, hear words, speak words, sing words, write words, and read words—all the time. Every day. What do words have to do with Christianity? Almost everything. At every stage in redemp... -
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Context Matters
My friend Mike Metzger of the Clapham Institute once used the following example to demonstrate how important frames are if we are to make sense of reality’s puzzle. This may seem like a head scratcher... -
Quote
As soon as we lay ourselves entirely at His feet, we have enough light given to us to guide our own steps. We are like the foot soldiers, who hear nothing of the councils that determine the course of ... -
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The World in which Jesus Lived
The world of Jesus was not the Old Testament Hebrew world. Like the United States now, Israel was multicultural, including a combination of Aramaic, Greek, and Roman influences. The people looked Jewi... -
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Keeping Christ at the Center
Christmas in May I’m pretty sure it was Stephen Covey, back in the day ( The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People ) who originally said, “The main thing is to let the main thing be the main thing... -
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Christianity: A One-Way Ticket to Heaven?
Most people today imagine that the point of Christianity is “to go to heaven when you die.” That’s what most believers believe. It’s what most unbelievers unbelieve. It’s certainly what journalists, b... -
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Don’t Let the Church Keep You from Being a Perfect Christian
In this satirical excerpt from How to be a Perfect Christian by the Babylon Bee, the point becomes clear that our often-consumeristic approach to church leaves much to be desired: You want to be a p... -
blog
Sacred Space: Lessons from Ethiopia’s Church Forests
Too Busy for God? American work culture is all-pervasive. For many members of your congregation, it can be a real fight to get actual time off—and cell phones and the internet has made it possible to... -
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Sometimes Easy, Sometimes Hard
You have noticed, I expect, that Christ Himself sometimes describes the Christian way as very hard, sometimes as very easy. He says, “Take up your Cross”—in other words, it is like going to be beaten ... -
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The Problem with Apologetics
The Oxford scholar and apologist C. S. Lewis... once closed a lecture to a group of apologists like this: I have found that nothing is more dangerous to one’s own faith than the work of an apologis... -
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The Central Truth of the Cosmos
Dying is something we mostly shy away from in Western society. But as Christians, we are called to a different way of viewing the life to come. In his inspirational and insightful book, The End of ... -
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Creating Christian Consumers
I’ve served on staff at a few different churches throughout Silicon Valley for the last decade and a half, including a medium-sized church, a young church plant, and a multisite megachurch. At each, w... -
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Never an Only Child
Whether we like it or not, the moment we confess Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, that is, from the time we become a Christian, we are at the same time a member of the Christian church … Our membe... -
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Christianity at its Core
Christianity at its core is not about subscription to a theological system or the authority of a sacred text or ethical perspectives, although they are all important. Christianity at its core is about... -
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Jesus Caught in the Middle of Modern Society
Jesus, as always, gets caught in the middle—along with a good number of his followers. Many people in America today were brought up in strict Christian homes and churches of one sort or another. There... -
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The Crucial Thing
In a journal entry by the Danish Philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, the great existentialist philosopher describes the importance not simply of grasping the truth of the Christian faith, but having the tr... -
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Far too many people, especially within evangelicalism, think that the individual is all that matters, and that the corporate dimension is a distraction or diversion. Of course Christianity is deeply p... -
liturgy
Jesus said, “I am the light of the world
Leader: Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” People: God is light, and in Him is no darkness at ... -
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The Many Houses Analogy and the Problem with the Attic
Before he was a household name, C. S. Lewis was a hardened atheist. From his teens to his early thirties, he vocalized many of the objections to Christianity that animate doubt in our age. After his s... -
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The Strong & the Weak
Every other religion and philosophy says you have to do something to connect to God; but Christianity says no, Jesus Christ came to do for you what you couldn’t do for yourself. Every other religion s... -
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In view of all that God has accomplished for his people in Christ, how should his people live? They should present themselves to God as a ‘living sacrifice’, consecrated to him. The animal sacrifices ... -
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What is Luther?
When Martin Luther discovered that some had begun calling the first Protestants “Lutherans,” he strongly objected. It is funny to think that some 500 years later, many are still known by his name: ... -
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What is the Gospel?
I recently visited a missions school at a large church in Waco, Texas, and decided to try a similar test in a class-sized proportion. “Tell me,” I said to the group, “what is the gospel?” A young lady... -
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Christianity is without doubt the earthiest of all religions. Unlike most other religions, it doesn’t call you out of the physical, out of the body, or out of the world. Rather it tells you that God e... -
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Occasionally we talk about our Christianity as something that solves problems, and there is a sense in which it does. Long before it does so, however, it increases both the number and the intensity of... -
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The Shock-Value of Attending American MegaChurches for Third-World Missionary Kids
A missionary family who has started organic churches in some of the most dangerous fields in the world once returned to the states for furlough. On the first Sunday back, they visited a large Baptist ... -
liturgy
Leader: Arise! Shine! Christ’s Church
Leader: Arise! Shine! Christ’s Church has assembled. People: We are one body, with Christ as our head. Leader: What kind of body is this? People: The Body of Christ, brought together not by huma...
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