Yes. It's really hard to believe...but we are staring a new year. A long human tradition has been to face each new year with some degree of reflection and determination. Reflection on what went well and what did not...and determination to reboot with helpful resolve. It is a tradition that...
What is a Christian to make of war? Throughout the history of the church there have been times when war was embraced as God’s work. Other groups in other times rejected war and participation in it on moral grounds. Still, war remains with us with all of its loss, violence, and...
Sunday mornings we are walking through the earliest accounts of the church--stories from 2000 years ago. After making three journeys into the world of his time, a man named "Paul" determined to make a splash in the most important city of the day: Rome. It was a bold goal, and the Christian...
Rashad Hussain is the new U.S. ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom. He was confirmed by a Senate vote of 85 to 5. Hussain was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on Thursday (Dec. 16) by an overwhelming vote of 85 to 5. Hussain has degrees in philosophy, political science, and...
When I first came to FBC Shawnee we worked through the first 12 chapters of the book of Acts. Acts is the story of the early days of the Christian movement…those experiences will be showcased in the new series of studies on Sunday mornings. I am calling the series “The...
Seems whenever a holiday rolls around with a Christian theme (Easter, Christmas) some conversation will take place about the historical ties of that holiday to some pagan celebration. I personally don’t see what difference all of that makes to us today. Much of the historical trivia is...
Spiritual warfare. Few topics have spawned as many whacky and speculative ideas as this one. Naturally the idea draws interest and fuels the Stan Lee imagination in us all. But when I read the books and articles I am left wondering how much is real, and how much is just...
It nearly drove him mad. As a monk, Martin Luther agonized over the state of his soul. A particular strand of late Medieval theology had taught him that his relationship to God depended on him “doing his best.” The gospel that Luther was taught depended on him, not God. One of...
Paul wrote that the transformed mind helps the believer know what the will of the Lord is (Rom. 12:2). Jesus taught that only those who “do the will of my Father” will enter the kingdom of heaven (Mt. 7:21). Both Jesus and Paul spoke of discerning God’s will as a basic axiom of...
Russell Moore recently posted a good article on the Gospel Coalition website (read it here). The article talks about the dysfunction of being drawn to controversy, as we use say, “just for controversy’s sake.” While it is certainly true that many controversies are unavoidable...