Rethinking ‘What Would Jesus Do?’
What Is Jesus Doing (WIJD?) isn’t quite as catchy, but it’s a question that’s served me well. Jesus is not just a blueprint for someone who would always do the right thing. He is the living and active Son of God, who is at work in the world today. And He’s not just there when you’re not sure what the right thing to do is. He’s working around you (and in you) at all times.
“Muscle and a Shovel”: In Reply to Paul McGinty
You see, your and my salvation does not depend on our being experts in theology or hermeneutics. It depends on our having enough faith to confess our Lord and submit to baptism. And then we really are saved.
And we stay saved until we lose our faith — by denying Jesus, by rebelling against Jesus’ lordship, or by losing our trust in Jesus’ promises.
A Call To Evangelical Engagement In The Arts
The easy course is to withdraw and build our own counter-culture and watch as the culture around us dies. But such a response is wrong for a whole host of reasons. For one, we cannot inoculate all of our fellow believers from the lure of the secularizing culture. We are certainly not even accomplishing that much now. If we retreat, the culture will continue to decay and many more fellow believers will be caught up in it. If we engage, we can help our fellow Christians who embrace the culture to their detriment understand better the value of the Biblical worldview for their own decision-making.
But it isn’t only Christians who will suffer if we choose to withdraw. Millions of others will likely be affected as well. While we continue to seek to win people to faith in Jesus, we also can help make the lives they live better and less painful. Any life lived in conformity with God’s moral law will be a fuller, happier life if that person chooses it.
Eleven of the Most Common Mistakes Churches Make
This “top ten plus one” list is not comprehensive. It simply represents the most common mistakes I see.
A mentor of mine told me about the time he worked for an older pastor who used to come to the pulpit unprepared. So he would try to prepare during the song service. “Lord, give me something to say,” he’d pray. “Give me Your message.” After another song he’d ask again, “Lord, give me Your message.” Every Sunday it happened.
“One day,” the pastor said, “the Lord finally gave me His message. God told me, ‘Ralph, you’re lazy. That’s my message.’”
#SochiProblems Is More of An Embarrassment For America Than It Is For Russia
When Western writers point out Sochi Olympic blunders while also mocking the way Russians speak English, they only diminish their own street cred and fuel backlash. If Americans focus on shallow cultural differences, like what they think are funny sounds that Russians make, they’ll continue to believe all Russians are like Boris and Natasha from Rocky & Bullwinkle. In turn, they will lose authority to critique real issues in Russia.
Rutgers makes professor teach class he is clueless about, suspends him for telling students
In the first lecture, Trivers informed the 30 or so Rutgers undergrads who had signed up for the class that his plan was to learn the course materials gamely along with them. He observed that he thought it was strange that he was teaching the course in the first place since he is no expert on the material. He said he also planned to bring in a guest lecturer.
Administrators at the taxpayer-funded university then suspended Trivers for the crime of imparting this information to students.