Saturday Snippets (February 27)

As well as reading a lot of books, I also read a ton of articles every week. Here are some of the articles that I’ve read recently and have found interesting, helpful, challenging and encouraging. I hope that they will be the same for you, my dear readers…

The Pain of Pretended Omniscience

“the pain of pretended omniscience when it comes to social media, the sense of knowing too much about matters we can do nothing to change, and some of the anxieties and problems this can present us with emotionally and spiritually.”

A SPECTACLE UNTO ANGELS

“We do not face our trials, our temptations, or our fears alone. The Triune God Himself is our help. And the company of saints with Him join with Him, too. Nothing will cease their praying. Nothing will break our unity. And with that in mind, we run.”

I’m a philosopher. We can’t think our way out of this mess.

“As a young Christian philosopher, I wanted to be the confident, heresy-hunting Augustine, vanquishing the pagans with brilliance, fending off the Manichaeans and Pelagians with ironclad arguments. As a middle-aged man, I dream of being Mr. Rogers. When you’re young, it’s easy to confuse strength with dominance; when you’re older, you realize the feat of character it takes to be meek. I used to imagine my calling was to defend the Truth. Now I’m just trying to figure out how to love.”

Holistic care

“Neglecting to care for someone in all of these three areas should not be an option. We’re not called to be a charity, to only be a shoulder to cry on or to be a motivational speaker with a bit of Jesus sprinkled on top. We are the body of Christ. We are the bride of the great Bridegroom. We are the Lord’s people. Our desire should be to care for the Lord’s people holistically.”

Marriage: What It Is, Why It Matters, and the Consequences of Redefining It

“Redefining marriage does not simply expand the existing understanding of marriage. It rejects the anthropological truth that marriage is based on the complementarity of man and woman, the biological fact that reproduction depends on a man and a woman, and the social reality that children need a mother and a father. Redefining marriage to abandon the norm of male–female sexual complementarity would also make other essential characteristics—such as monogamy, exclusivity, and permanency—optional. Marriage cannot do the work that society needs it to do if these norms are further weakened.”

3 Steps To Culture Change In A Small Church (Hint: It’s Different Than A Big Church)

“Getting the culture right may be essential, but it isn’t everything. It’s the first thing. Get it right and you can get back on mission again. And the mission is what matters.”

Why Mercy Ministries Don’t Work

“Sadly, far too many churches and Christians are a hindrance to the poor, and not a help to them at all. They are guilty of paternalistic outreach, often wrapped up in the guise of a successful ministry (when success is measured by 40 people turning up this week for a parcel and most of them stayed for a chat). These ministries go on, almost in perpetuity, serving largely the same constituents with many of them never really moving on from their life situations. They are trapped, and we are often unknowingly guilty of keeping them trapped.”

The Work Of The Spirit In Preaching

“I hope this article will give you equal measures of confidence and craving. Confidence that the Spirit will make preaching effective – even if we don’t feel we have prepared well enough. This means we must always expect God to speak when Christ is proclaimed. But, we must also have a craving for more power, so that Christ may be even more glorified. An experience that is not based on our preparation or crafted sermon, but the Spirit’s power. This means that both the preacher and the hearer must be dedicated to praying for the Spirit to come in power.”

A Church for All

“This is the church: men and women of the faith, immigrants and natives and lost children, the weak and lowly and those with scars, the older and the younger with the wisdom of generations, the little children, the single and the married and the widowed, all these and all those in between, united in Christ their salvation. One Savior, one Church, and all the local churches who look to one source as their guide. All these churches of Christ welcome these people. This is the church.”

Giant kauri tree unearthed in New Zealand was ripped up and buried by Noah’s Flood

This is an interesting read.

Why Don’t We Follow All of the Old Testament Laws?

“It’s pretty common these days for people to dismiss Christians as inconsistent because “they follow some of the rules in the Bible and ignore others.” The challenge usually sounds something like this: “When the Bible talks about certain sexual behaviors as sin, you quote that; but when it says not to eat shellfish or that you should execute people for breaking the Sabbath, you just ignore it. Aren’t you just picking and choosing what suits you best?”I’ve found that this objection carries a lot of weight, and not just with non-Christians. Many Christians have a hard time answering it … which is why we just secretly hope it never comes up.”