Can women be deacons? Can divorced people be deacons? I don’t hear much about deacons at all these days, let alone about these two questions. Maybe our culturally-driven preoccupation with prominent pastors and other high profile Christian leaders draws our attention away from the multitude of faithful deacons who serve Christ anonymously in churches all over the world. In this post we’ll spend a little time reviewing the New Testament teaching on deacons and then speak to the two questions raised above.
Wisdom For Ministry
Preaching Hebrews means preaching like Hebrews preaches.
Preachers tend to avoid Hebrews. It’s long and involved. It’s full of scary warnings. It probably wasn’t even written by Paul! But its message is vital for those who practice convenient Christianity today. What’s more, it’s a goldmine when it comes to showing us how to preach. Preaching Hebrews means preaching like Hebrews preaches!
Is Love Really All You Need? Reflecting on Marriage
Recently I was honored to be the officiant at the wedding ceremony of a family member. Preparing for the ceremony led me to revisit the eternal question about the meaning of love. Here’s the reflection I gave during the ceremony.
Power in Weakness: A Conversation with Tim Gombis about Paul’s Vision for Ministry
In this post I preview Tim Gombis’s recent book Power in Weakness and link to a conversation I had with Tim about the book. It’s appropriate that we focus on this book during the Easter Season, when we commemorate the events that first transformed Paul’s vision for ministry. Paul encountered the risen and exalted Lord Jesus on the road to Damascus. There he began to understand cruciformity. Easter is never over. It’s the beginning, not the end.
Why we Need the The Baker Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary
Insistence on awareness of contemporary culture begs a crucial question. How can we apply the Bible to current cultures if we are ignorant of the ancient cultures from which the Bible originates? The text doesn’t mean today what it never meant then. As the publishers of BIBBC put it, We are far removed from the time and culture of the biblical world, and this distance easily leads to misunderstanding and misinterpretation. Our understanding and appreciation of God’s Word increase exponentially when we know the historical and cultural context in which the biblical books were written.
Sola Scrittura: Remembering Diodati on Reformation Day 2020
Giovanni Diodati (1576-1649) may be the most important reformer you’ve never heard of. At least that was the case with me until several weeks ago when I was preparing for a Zoom seminar with believers in Italy on how to study the Bible. I soon learned of the importance of Diodati’s translation of the Bible into Italian. In fact, Diodati’s entire life and ministry exemplified Sola Scrittura, the basic protestant thesis that the Bible is our sole authority for faith and practice.