It is a question an author once asked, a question that intrigued me. Which man was more free: was it the emperor or was it the missionary? Was it Nero or was it Paul?

Was it Nero in his palace surrounded by attendants, his table overflowing with delicacies, his eyes overwhelmed with visual delights? Or was it Paul in his prison cell surrounded by soldiers, bound by chains, dependent upon the charity of others? Was it the man who was free to come and go as he pleased or the man who was held captive?
It is always an exercise in encouragement to read the book of Philippians, but the encouragement flows all the more when we consider the context in which Paul wrote it. Scholars agree that Paul wrote this letter from prison and most likely the prison in Rome in which he was confined around 62 AD. He writes to the citizens of a Roman colony in Philippi to remind them how to live as citizens of a heavenly kingdom here on earth. He writes to encourage them and to rejoice in all God has done and is doing. He writes as a man who, though bound, is free as free can be.
It was not when he was freely treading the road between Athens and Corinth but when he was a prisoner of the Imperial Guard that he said, “rejoice in the Lord.”
It was not when he was standing before great crowds of eager listeners but when he was able to speak to only one or two at a time that he wrote with humility, “I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel.”
It was not when he was receiving acclaim and affirmation but when he himself was in the darkest of circumstances and facing the possibility of death that he commanded, “Do all things without grumbling or disputing.”
It was while he was within the stark walls of a prison that he wrote, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice.” It was when his mind may have been overwhelmed with anxieties that he commended the value of constraining our minds to think about whatever is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellent, and worthy of praise. It was when he was indefinitely confined and uncertain of his future that he said, “I am glad and rejoice with you all. Likewise you also should be glad and rejoice with me.”
What could have been the epistle of fear is instead the epistle of faith. What could have been the epistle of grumbling is instead the epistle of cheer. What could have been the epistle of doubting God’s goodness is instead the epistle of hope, joy, and spiritual encouragement.
Nero may have been nominally free, but was more rightly bound—bound by sin, bound by paranoia, bound by dissipation despite his high circumstances. His life would end in an ignoble death that was either by his own hand or by the hand of a friend. His reputation is one of abnormal cruelty and he has gone down in history as the man who serenely played music while Rome burned around him, possibly at his command.
Paul may have been nominally bound, but was more rightly free—free to love, free to serve, free to worship despite his low circumstances. His life would end in the glory of martyrdom and he would gladly face the executioners to receive the crown of glory. His reputation is one of unsurpassed devotion to God and he has gone down in history as the foremost theologian of the Christian faith.
So which man was more free: was it the emperor or was it the missionary? Was it Nero or was it Paul? The answer is plain as day. And the answer challenges us that we are most truly never bound, for nothing can imprison our hearts and keep us from rejoicing. Nothing can bind our mouths and keep us from professing Christ. Nothing can bind our abilities and keep us from serving others. Nothing can keep us from glorifying God and serving out the purpose he has assigned to us, whether in a palace or a prison. We are always free to love, free to serve, free to worship the God who has saved us and will someday receive us to his side.

I want to continue to express gratitude to those who have featured interviews or reviews related to Seasons of Sorrow: Kurt & Kate on Moody Radio (audio); Three Guys Theologizing (audio); Paul Tautges; Reading for the Glory; Sandee Macgregor; and Reformed Mum.

Westminster Books has a deal this week on Paul Tripp’s new book. They’ve also marked down a number of his other works.
It’s another good day for Kindle deals as we continue to build our libraries!
Into the anthropological chaos
Carl Trueman considers Revoice and its inevitable drift. “It is hard to find one high-profile critic of the movement who was taken with real seriousness by Revoice advocates. With the reports of gender and trans ideology making its way firmly into Revoice 2022, the time for dialogue seems now to be over.” (Also read the article he references.)
A Caution to Those Who Decree and Declare
Oyewole Akande urges caution to those who decree and declare in prayer. “Over the last few decades, the practice of decreeing and declaring has spread like wildfire across Africa. This practice comes from the Word of Faith movement and its emphasis on the power of words and the need for positive confessions in every sphere of the Christian’s life.”
A 90-Day Devotional on the Five Solas of the Reformation
Sometimes one word is all that stands between the truth and a lie, between life and death. In the Reformation, that word was sola, “alone.” This month, you can request Ligonier Ministries’ book The Heart of the Reformation for a donation of any amount in support of Ligonier’s gospel outreach. Take up this devotional to spend 90 days with the five solas of the Reformation. (Sponsored Link)
Food Offered to Idols: A Contemporary Issue
“This issue is more important than many who are from a Christian-influenced, secularized, or monotheistic religious background readily understand. [2] Cultures dedicated to this kind of pagan worship are dominated by public religious festivals and regular rituals. Community and family life revolve around these observances. Involvement in all this is the major expression of community, ethnic pride, unity, and even patriotism.”
Our Bodies Have Purpose and Value
In the current cultural context it’s crucial to affirm that our bodies have God-given purpose and value.
Waiting on the Lord
“I want to be patient, to wait up on the Lord, to trust in His timing. But my initial reaction is to be disappointed for what might have been, to struggle as I watch our retirement dreams hang in the balance, and to try to find an answer for myself to the question, ‘If God wanted me to be patient, why did he create me so impatient?’”
Flashback: The Influenced Will Be Like the Influencer
Bit by bit, day by day, sermon by sermon, podcast by podcast, we will come to resemble the people we follow. For good or for ill, we will imitate them until we are like them.

An eye to the throne-room of God is the cure to fascination with the circus of the world. —Matthew Harmon

Blessings to you today!

There is yet another batch of Kindle deals for you this morning.
(Yesterday on the blog: Shaken to Bear Fruit)
Who Was David Brainerd?
Dustin Benge has written a nice little introduction to David Brainerd. “On a spring day in 1747, mounted on his horse, a frail twenty-nine year old David Brainerd (1718–1747) rode into the yard of the Northampton parsonage of New England pastor Jonathan Edwards. Before this day, Brainerd and Edwards were relative strangers to one another. However, the summer of 1747 nurtured a growing friendship between the two men culminating in one of the most influential missionary biographies in the history of American evangelicalism.”
Love Without Limits
This is sweet. “I learned that the heart is infinitely expandable—limitless, even—with no bottom or edges or measuring devices attached. I learned that I could add and add and add people to my circle of family or friends and I would never run out of love to give. I learned that I could love many people equally, and loving one person intensely due to some temporary circumstance never had to mean that another would suffer from any lack of love from me. I learned that even when I thought I couldn’t love any harder, or more expansively, or deeper … I could.”
We Love to Give Gold Stars
Ryan Higginbottom: “When we obsess about the ethics of every action of a character in a Bible passage, we are likely to miss the main point. We should investigate why the author wrote this passage in this way; if they were not concerned with parsing the moral grade of a character’s actions, we should not be either.”
What South Asian Christians Do During Diwali
“It’s Diwali,” Aileen told me early yesterday morning when fireworks woke us up just after midnight. This article from CT tells what Christians in South Asia do during the holiday. And the article makes me think of what I’ve taken for granted: that the holidays in Canada are all just fine for Christians to celebrate. Not so everywhere in the world!
How Tall Was Goliath? A Textual Dilemma
How tall was Goliath? The answer isn’t quite as straightforward as we may think.
Greek Grammar and Trinitarian Worship
This is a good article from Adriel Sanchez.
Flashback: Why I Owe Everything To Don Lewis
If we trace the Christian faith of all these people—perhaps 40 or 50 of us now—they all eventually converge on Don Lewis. They all converge on a young man who simply and faithfully shared the gospel.

Persecution has never hurt the church…only prosperity. —Paul Washer

The strange machine along the streets of Madrid seized my attention.

Its long arms reached out and wrapped themselves around the trunk of a tree. Its motor vibrated those arms at high speeds so they could shake the tree violently. Its net sat suspended just beneath the lowest branches. As the machine buzzed and roared, a hundred ripe oranges fell from the branches to land in the net below — a hundred ripe oranges that could feed and satisfy a hundred people. That machine was carefully designed to release the fruit from the tree — to release it by shaking.
The nets filled with oranges remind me of something the apostle Paul once wrote about times of trial and tribulation, of deep sorrow and loss. He contended that Christians must be prepared to be afflicted, perplexed, persecuted, and even struck down — a collection of words meant to display the variety of ways in which God may call us to suffer (2 Corinthians 4:8–9).
The God who is sovereign over all things may lead us into times and contexts that are deeply painful. Yet we can be confident that our suffering is never arbitrary and never meaningless, for God always has a purpose in mind. Hence, Paul says more: we will be “afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed.” For those in Christ, God’s purpose is never to harm us and never to ruin us.
So what is God’s purpose in our suffering? Why does God sometimes lead us away from the green pastures and still waters to call us instead to follow him into deep and dark valleys (Psalm 23)? These were questions that were much on my mind in the days, weeks, and months following the Lord’s decision to call my son to himself.
(Note: this article was commissioned by Desiring God and posted to their site last month)
God Left Us Sonless
Nick, age 20, was at seminary and taking a break from his studies to play a game with a group of his friends when, in an instant, his heart stopped, his body fell to the ground, and his soul went to heaven. His friends tried to revive him, a passing doctor tried to revive him, responding paramedics and emergency-room doctors tried to revive him. But it was to no avail. God had called him home. And since God had summoned him to heaven, there was no doctor, no medication, and no procedure that could keep my son here on earth.
I don’t know why God determined that Nick would live so short a life, why he would leave this world with so little accomplished and so much left undone. I don’t know why God determined to leave Aileen and me sonless, Abby and Michaela brotherless, Ryn fiancéless and ultimately husbandless. I don’t know why God did it — why God exercised his sovereignty in taking away a young man who was so dearly loved, who was so committed to serving Jesus, and who had so much promise. But I don’t need to know, for, as Moses said, “The secret things belong to the Lord our God” (Deuteronomy 29:29).
While I don’t know why God did it, I am already beginning to understand how God is using it.
Lamentation Without Resentment
On the streets of Madrid, a machine shakes the orange trees to cause them to release their fruit. It shakes them violently, shakes them so hard that it almost looks as if the branches must snap, as if the trunk must splinter, as if the entire tree must be uprooted. Yet this is the way it must be done, for the delicious fruit is connected tightly to the inedible branches. And the moment the machine has collected the fruit, I observe, it ceases its shaking, it furls up its net, it withdraws its arms, and it backs away, leaving the tree healthy and well, prepared to bear yet another harvest.
And just like that machine shook the orange tree, Nick’s death has shaken me and shaken my family and shaken my church and shaken Nick’s friends and shaken his school — shaken us to our very core. Yet this shaking, though it has been violent and exceedingly painful, has not caused us to break. We have raised our voices in lamentation, but never in rebellion. We have raised hands of worship, but never fists of rage. We have asked questions, but have never expressed resentment.
To the contrary, as I look at those who love Nick most, I see them displaying fresh evidences of God’s grace. I see them growing in love for God, in the joy of their salvation, in the peace of the gospel, in their patience with God’s purposes, in kindness toward others, in the goodness of personal holiness, in faithfulness to all God has called them to, in gentleness with other people’s sins and foibles, and in that rare, blessed virtue of self-control. I see them bearing the precious fruit of the Spirit as never before (Galatians 5:22–23).
Shaken to Bear Fruit
Just as the fruit of the tree clings tightly to the branch, the evil within us clings tightly to the good, the vices to the virtues, the immoral to the upright. God does not mean to harm us when he shakes us, but simply to release the fruit — to do what is necessary to separate what is earthly from what is heavenly, what dishonors him from what delights his heart.
As I consider my wife, as I consider my girls, as I consider Nick’s precious fiancée, as I consider his friends and fellow church members, I see that they have been deeply shaken by his death — shaken by God’s sovereign hand. But I see as well that they have been shaken for a beautiful purpose. They have been shaken to bear fruit.

Grace and peace to you today, my friends.

There are some very interesting books discounted in today’s Kindle deals.
Remember This About Spiritual Fruit
“Fruit in the Christian life is essential. We read our Bibles, pray, do good works, love others—Christians exhibit fruit. The produce of the Holy Spirit is guaranteed. God does the work in us, through us, with us. And this is where our struggles with assurance of salvation and frustrations in sanctification crop up. We forget two essential lessons about fruit.”
Why We Must Teach Kids Safety Skills
Julie Lowe wants to make sure parents are teaching their kids necessary safety skills.
Stream the Luther Documentary for Free
October 31 marks 505 years since Martin Luther effectively—and unintentionally—sparked the Protestant Reformation with his Ninety-Five Theses. Discover Luther’s story by watching the award-winning documentary Luther: The Life and Legacy of the German Reformer. It’s available to steam for free on Ligonier Ministries’ YouTube channel. You can also download the accompanying study guide for free. (Sponsored Link)
Jeffrey Dahmer and Killing Our True Crime Obsession
CT makes the case for not watching certain kinds of shows. “The voyeuristic pleasure that comes with another serial killer story, or another version of a familiar killer’s story, is evidence of a gross fixation. If anything, the industry that produces such depictions of violence and profits from it enables the expression of what is already true: We’re fascinated with evil.”
Why Christians Should Oppose Marijuana Legalization
Meanwhile, Joe Carter makes the case against the legalization of marijuana.
Iran’s Church Seeks God amid Protests
Nima Alizadeh: “On September 16, 2022, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman visited the Iranian capital, Tehran, where she was arrested by ‘morality police’ for not having a proper hijab. They claimed she violated a law requiring women to cover their hair completely. She was beaten and later died while in custody.”
Has the Internet Corrupted Our Moral Outrage?
“I recently had an experience that is common to all. After rushing to meet a self-imposed deadline, I hit publish on one of my articles, and I awoke the following day to an unpublished comment by someone who was literally shocked at the ambiguity of the article, its lack of biblical truth, and my dangerous practice. They then let me know that it may be time to unsubscribe.”
Flashback: Prayer for the Unconverted
Buried deep in an old, mostly-forgotten anthology of poetry, I found this little gem from Newman Hall—a poem that expresses in rhyme and meter the longing of many a Christian heart. May it give you words to pray for “those who do not pray, who waste away salvation’s day.”

Since Satan can’t destroy the gospel, he has too often neutralized its usefulness by addition, subtraction, or substitution. —J.C. Ryle

Here is a question worth asking: Outside of the Bible, what is the earliest prayer we know? Of all the Christians who lived after Christ, who was the first to have a prayer recorded that has endured through the ages? The answer, it seems, may well be  Clement of Rome. In the new book Fount of Heaven which shares prayers from the earliest Christians, you’ll find this sweet prayer which dates from late in the first century. Yet, like any good prayer, it could as easily be prayed by any of us today.

Help us to set our hope on your name, Lord. You are the origin and source of all creation. You open the eyes of our hearts so we can know you.
You alone abide highest in the lofty place. You are holy in the holy. You lay low the insolence of the proud, set the lowly on high, and bring down the lofty. You make rich and poor, give life and death. You alone are the benefactor of spirits and the God of all flesh.
You look into the deepest places and see all our works. You help and relieve those who are in peril, and you are the savior of those in despair. You are the creator and overseer of every spirit.
You multiply the nations and have chosen out all who love you through Jesus Christ, your beloved Son, through whom you taught us, honored us, and set us apart. Amen.

I want to express my appreciation to Reformed Free Publishing Association for sponsoring the blog this week with news of their lovely new book I Belong: Heidelberg Catechism Question and Answer 1 for Children.

Our friends at Christianbook.com are having a Bible Sale. It includes ESV Study Bible, The Biggest Story Bible Storybook, ESV Story of Redemption Bible, ESV Prayer Bible, and many more that are discounted up to 80%. If you prefer the CSB, NIV, etc, they’ve also got you covered.
(Yesterday on the blog: Embracing Complementarianism)
The 4 Kinds of Books You (Almost) Never Need to Read
Samuel James: “Nobody wants to read foolishly. There are, however, things you can remember to avoid doing it. Here’s a quick list of four kinds of books that you almost never need to read. As always, remember that these are reliable generalizations, not absolute rules; you may find the rare example of a book in one of these genres that’s actually good.”
Can I trust the CSB, MEV, or NLT? (Video)
Mark Ward’s brief video on these translations is a good one.
Miracle or Providence?
Like Jesse, I sometimes find people inadvertently cheapen providence by speaking too freely of miracles.
5 Effects of Expository Preaching on a Church
Anand Samuel: “To publicly herald God’s Word is an act of worship (2 Tim. 2:15), and a stewardship for which we’ll give an account. Here are five ways expository preaching beautifies Christ’s bride.”
Astray
“Last night my stomach tightened as I pulled Johnny’s red jacket out of the dryer. This is the jacket I described to the police officer. Will I ever be able to look at it the same way again?”
How is God’s sovereignty compatible with man’s responsibility in salvation? (Video)
It takes several of the Ligonier fellows to answer this one.
Flashback: God Gave Me Three Children (and Three Friends)
It is a thrill and a joy to be both a father and a friend, to relate to them as both children and trusted companions. It is a blessing to be loved not just because they have to, but because they want to.

No eye is quicker to see the mercy of God than the eye washed with the tears of repentance. —Charles Spurgeon

This week’s Free Stuff Friday is sponsored by Reformed Free Publishing Association who also sponsored the blog this week with the article “Comforting and Doctrinal Devotions for Children.” They are giving away 10 free copies of I Belong: Heidelberg Catechism Question and Answer 1 for Children.

“What is your only comfort in life and death?
That I with body and soul, both in life and death, am not my own, but belong unto my faithful Savior Jesus Christ…”
 So begins the first question and answer of the Heidelberg Catechism. I Belong: Heidelberg Catechism Question and Answer 1 for Children, a new picture book by Joyce Holstege, takes this question and answer and breaks it into sections. Throughout the book, Joyce explains each comforting phrase of the answer in language that is understandable to young children. 
How to use the book
We recommend that you make use of I Belong as a devotional and read a devotion each day with your young children especially. All together there are twenty-two devotions in the book. 
Here’s a sneak peek at part of the very first devotion:
It’s comforting to belong to God because you know he will care for you. The Bible tells you that when you pass through the deep waters and when you walk through the fire, God will be with you.
Features
Joyce’s goal for the book was that it be a blessing to both children and their parents, and that it spark discussion and thought-provoking questions during times of family devotions. In addition to the devotion on each spread, there are some other great features in the book that will foster these conversations:

Scripture verses: every devotion closes with a simple verse or portion of a verse that is easy to memorize and that will help children remember the comforting doctrinal truths in the devotion. Here are a couple of examples:

Psalm 51:2 – “Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin” from the devotion, “But if I belong to God, why do I need a savior?”
Matthew 10:30 – “But the very hairs of your head are all numbered” from the devotion, “Since I belong to God, God has planned everything for my life.”

Illustrations: each spread of the book has a beautiful full-page illustration, created by Meagan Krosschell, a young artist from Randolph, Wisconsin. These colorful illustrations of a diverse group of children will capture children’s imaginations as they learn what it means to belong to their faithful Savior.

Takeaways: reading thought these brief summaries of each devotion (found on the same side of the spread as the illustration) are another great way to help children remember what they have learned.

Here’s what others are saying about the book
I love using this book as a devotional with our 5 year old…There are many times we stop and start our reading, as she remarks or has a question, showing an ability to grasp these truths in her young mind and heart…This book is a gem for those who want to impress upon their child’s heart that this world and everything in it belongs to God – and most importantly that we live to serve and praise our Creator God!
~HollyF on Amazon
My children ask me to read this book to them every night…Using this book has provided a wonderful opportunity for many thoughtful discussions about how we belong to God, who God is, Jesus dying on the cross, what it means to be a righteous child of God, what Heaven is like, and much more…As [we] read, I know they are understanding and learning about God and doctrine, but they are also able to begin memorizing this important Q&A of the Heidelberg Catechism.
~Randy Kuiper on Amazon
Enter here
Again, there are 10 copies to win. To enter the drawing, just drop your name and email address in the form below. This will add you to Reformed Free Publishing Association’s mailing list.
Giveaway Rules: You may enter one time. Winners will be notified by email. The giveaway will end on October 31st, 2022.

There are a number of Christian doctrines that, though important, do not necessarily have a significant impact on our lives or relationships. It may be good to have convictions about infralapsarianism over against supralapsarianism, but that conviction will probably not make a great difference to day-to-day living or to life in the local church. There are other doctrines, though, that have a seismic impact so that your convictions will have significant consequences to your life, to your family, and to your church. An obvious example is gender roles and whether your convictions lead you to complementarianism or egalitarianism.

My convictions align with complementarianism—the view that God, while creating men and women equal in value and dignity, has ordained a kind of complementarity between them so that in the home and church men are to take a position of Christ-like leadership. But while I find the Bible leading me to complementarian convictions in a relatively straightforward way, what has been far more difficult is working out exactly what this looks like in real life. It is one thing to have complementarian doctrine, but another thing to have a complementarian life and church. In other words, it is one thing to acknowledge the doctrine, but another to truly embrace it.
Let’s not act as if this is the easiest challenge we will ever face, because as we attempt to be consistently complementarian, we will face a host of questions that will need to be answered: Does God mean for only men to be elders? Does God mean for only men to be deacons? If only men are to be teachers in the church, can a woman lead a Bible study? What about a youth group? Can a woman lead worship on a Sunday morning or would that be to exercise authority over the men of the congregation? And what if my understanding of some of these questions differs from another nearby church or from the teaching of a well-known “celebrity” pastor?
This is exactly where a new book from Graham Beynon and Jane Tooher has proven so helpful. Embracing Complementarianism is meant to help Christians—and Christian leaders in particular—turn biblical convictions into a positive church culture. “Our conviction,” they say, “is that teaching and practising a robust complementarianism leads people from a reluctant acceptance to a joyful embracing of God’s word in this area.” Their strategy is not so much to defend complementarianism—something that has been done elsewhere and often—but to advance it by helping Christians work it out in the life of their church.
They begin with a lay of the land—an assessment of where culture is at with its understanding of gender and gender roles and they are blunt in describing how both the wider culture and the Christian church have often failed in protecting women and in freeing them to do all God desires them to do. They describe some of the debates in the church and explain how a teacher like John Piper differs from one like Carl Trueman. With this done, they provide a relatively brief defense of the complementarian position and its understandings of both equality and distinction.
The heart of the book begins in chapter 4 where the authors show that we tend to fall into two equal and opposite dangers—the danger of overemphasizing the differences between men and women and the danger of underemphasizing them. They want their readers to understand that, though there are some gender-specific commands in the Bible, the great majority are given to men and women alike. Yet with gender being so fundamental to who we are, we must expect that these commands will be fulfilled in gendered ways. “The way in which we are kind, or express encouragement, or love our neighbor, and so on, will be shown through our gender—and that will, on average, look somewhat different between men and women. And that is a good, right and enriching thing to be embraced.” There are implications to this. While some roles in the church may be reserved for men, the church must be a place where life together welcomes and displays expressions that vary according to gender.
A chapter about the goodness of men leading in ministry shows how and why God has called men to lead in the church, but introduces questions that leaders will need to wrestle with: Does this include deacons? Does this include ministry leaders? And so on. Chapters on understanding church and understanding ministry continue to answer some questions while introducing others, to solve some of the biggest issues but to leave the peripheral ones to be worked out according to context and conviction. Two final chapters continue to guide leaders in faithfully working out complementarian doctrine in their churches. Here they describe and urge a “mapping exercise” in which leaders will think carefully about how convictions can be expressed in the whole life of the church.
To be complementarian has always been to be counter-cultural. If that was true a few years ago, how much more today when society’s questions have progressed from “what can women do as well as men?” to “what is a woman, anyway?” Yet I agree with these authors that church members tend to respond to a confident, convictional, and robust complementarianism. I very much appreciate their desire to encourage believers to truly embrace complementarianism by practicing it in a way that is worth embracing—one that is faithful to God’s Word, that celebrates both the distinction and equality of the genders, and that frees both men and women to serve in all the ways God permits and invites them to. It’s my hope that many church leaders will read this book and carefully work through it as they attempt to implement a complementarianism that honors God and is faithful to the Scriptures.

Buy from Amazon

The Lord be with you and bless you today.

There’s a nice and rather eclectic collection of Kindle deals today. Most of these deals last just a day or two, so be sure to check often.
From Silence to Complexification to Capitulation
Kevin DeYoung explains “why evangelical surrender on LGBTQ is almost never a surprise.”
God’s Glory On The Day I Watched My Husband Save Our Son’s Life
Lauren Washer describes a terrifying day. “‘911, what’s your emergency?’ I tell her our son is choking and we cannot help him. He has Down syndrome. Please, hurry. I give her our address, and tell her we live just down the street from the fire department. On the corner. The green house. He has Down syndrome, he doesn’t know what’s happening, and he can’t communicate to us what he’s thinking or feeling.”
3 Ways to Turn Against Your Pastor
Jared Wilson describes ways that people turn against their pastor. “Most people don’t set out to dislike their pastors. Something just happens. ”
Stop Throwing Pastors Under the Bus
In a similar vein, Brent McCracken wants people to stop throwing their pastors under the proverbial bus. “I’ve noticed an increasingly prevalent genre of online evangelical Christian commentary in which pastors are shamed because they’re insufficiently vocal about this or that outrage or not militant enough in the culture war. Increasingly, it seems, there’s a lot of social media mileage in throwing pastors under the bus.”
What Does My Dog Think I Do All Day?
“If I can’t explain ‘work’ to my dog, I certainly can’t explain quantum mechanics to an ant. They are so small, we barely inhabit the same world. Their perspective is totally different, their senses operate on a completely different scale, and their brains are so very tiny. I submit that ants are much closer to humans in intellectual ability than humans are to God.”
Life Together as One
I thoroughly enjoyed this simple account of two people meeting and marrying.
Flashback: 6 Reasons For You To Consider Writing
The best writing seems to come from those who have developed their talent in writing and then fostered the gift of teaching. Put together, they are a valuable means of serving other believers.

A converted beggar is far more important and honorable in the sight of God than an unconverted king. —J.C. Ryle