Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. – Romans 8:26
We do not know what to pray for. We never know what to pray for. Paul tells us that the Spirit helps us, not in our weaknesses, but in our weakness, singular. We aren’t people who mostly have it …
Megan Hill over at Sunday Women posted a list of 50 ways to love your church. Here are her top 10:
1. Show up for worship.
2. Sing. Heartily.
3. Say “Amen.” (I’m looking at you, fellow-Presbyterians.)
4. Pray for church members.
5. Pray with church members.
6. Let them pray for you.
7. Weep.
8. Rejoice.
9. Learn people’s names.
10. Introduce yourself so they can learn yours.
Growing up as a pastor’s kid …
Last month I taught at a discipleship event on the topic of meditation. Below is a link to a PDF of my slides from the event. I admitted freely in the talk that I’m indebted to Tim Keller for his thoughts and research on the subject. Consider going to his ministry resource site, gospelinlife.com, and purchasing his series on meditation. Don’t be surprised when you hear anything that sounds familiar.
If a man with a broken arm and a woman having a heart attack both walk into the emergency room at the same time which one get’s treated first? Obviously, the person with the life threatening emergency gets preferential treatment. You’d be foolish to admit the broken arm while someone is dying in the lobby. This method for assigning urgency to patients based on their conditions is called triage, and it’s a helpful concept to …
“The nature of the material under investigation determines the rules by which you interpret it.”
It’s been 10 years since I sat in his class but I can still hear Dr. McKenzie hammering that sentence down, down, down into our skulls. In today’s Bible Study Basic post I’ll be explaining the concept of genre (in a rather simplistic way).
You read a love letter differently than you read a textbook, differently than you read a …
This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God. John 5:18 (ESV)
Jesus understood himself, and indeed proclaimed himself to be God incarnate. Every Christian should know that Jesus, himself, made these kinds of claims. The deity of Christ wasn’t invented by the church after Jesus, the man, died. …
Yesterday I finished reading Eat This Book by Eugene Peterson (the same pastor who gave us The Message). Just as Tim Keller’s book will be my go-to resource for Christians who want to learn to pray, I highly recommend this book for those wanting to learn to read the Bible for spiritual nourishment.
The title comes from the passage in Revelation when the Apostle John is commanded to eat the scroll which contained God’s Word. …
I’ve had an ongoing conversation with a handful of church members about meditation on the Scriptures. We’ve been talking about how we practice meditation, what it is, and how we can increase in the blessing it brings to us. We all agree, as do many Christians throughout history, that meditation moves from merely reasoning the words of Scriptures towards sensing the words.
Just as we have 5 physical senses, taste, touch, smell, sight, and hearing …
It’s week two of Bible Study Basic. Last week I told you The Bible is About Jesus. This week I’m giving you a method of reading the Bible. If you’re going to be a good Bible student you have to learn to read the parts and the whole. What do I mean by that? Well, we can divide your Bible up into smaller parts.
In case you missed it, last week I said I wished every Christian knew Galatians 3.2-7. This week I want you to consider a passage from the Old Testament:
…Hosea 2.16-23
16 “And in that day, declares the Lord, you will call me ‘My Husband,’ and no longer will you call me ‘My Baal.’ 17 For I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth, and they shall be remembered by name