Looking for a Word

“The crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God ...”

How did these four words become so commonplace among Christians? How did we come to take them so completely for granted?

It’s Sunday morning, so the family piles into the aging Camry five minutes late, maybe ten. Dad is distracted by problems at the office and the condition of the lawn, which he meant to get to Saturday afternoon but didn’t. Mom is simmering about Junior, whose hair is its usual mess, and who didn’t wear the freshly pressed shirt she put out for him last night, but there wasn’t time to make him change before meeting. Junior is rhapsodizing about a blonde in his math class, while Sis obsesses over the number of calories in the cream cheese bagel Mom guilted her into eating for breakfast, half of which she smuggled into the garbage in a napkin. Meanwhile, the baby just spat her soother under the car seat again. Everyone is used to the waves of ambient unhappiness she emits most of her waking life, but this morning she’s cranked the volume up to eleven.

We’re off to hear God’s word.

Thank You for the Failures

God wants to save “all people”, or so we are told.

Some readers understand that concept very broadly. They see that God “desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth”, and conclude from it that God would prefer it if every single human being on the planet were to turn from sin and self to Christ, who is God’s only way of salvation.

This may very well be true, though I don’t think it’s exactly what Paul was telling Timothy.

False Unities and Lines of Division

As Christians living in a day in which we have every possible advantage in understanding what God has revealed of himself to mankind down through the centuries, the importance of having our hearts and heads thoroughly marinated in the word of God cannot be overstated.

There is no area of human investigation that matters more. None.

But in a fallen world, the word of God divides. The more we read it and follow it, the more we will find ourselves separated from those who don’t.

The Inside Scoop

Those in the news business are forever occupied with beating one another to a story. Old media or new, success is measured in the ability to get the inside scoop.

God, on the other hand, is not in the business of broadcasting his secrets. Communicating is something in which he takes great pleasure, but not something he does casually. His truth is for those who value it and understand its worth, not for those who dismiss or trivialize it.

The value of God’s word is one of its repeated themes.

Thank You for the Failures

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Top 10 Ways To Argue Like A Christian

The internet is full of people arguing.

Yes, I know, the sun also rises in the east. Humans breathe air. Tell me something slightly less obvious.

Okay. The internet is full of Christians arguing. Some of us do it well. Some do it really, really badly. And the thing is, Christians shouldn’t argue like unbelievers. When you know the Lord Jesus, you have access to a weapon nobody but a believer can wield: the word of God, which is:

“… living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” (Hebrews 4:12)

There isn’t a more effective weapon forged, assembled or built in a lab in the history of the human race.