Links To Go (July 12, 2016)

Will You Weep With Me?

There will be other days for critique and disagreements, fact-seeking and fault-finding. But can you do me a favor today and just weep with me? Weep with us. Weep with that man’s family. Weep with Baton Rouge.
We can and should work for justice. But what we need today is prophetic lament. Cry out against the murder of another image-bearer. Cry out against the injustice. Cry out to the Lord for healing, help, and hope.


How to Pray in Our Time of National Crisis

Laments may be occasioned by bereavement, personal trouble, national disaster, or the judgment of God. Throughout the Old Testament, and especially in the Psalms, we find lamentations that can serve as model for how we can respond in prayer in times of crisis.


The Bahamas’ new U.S. travel advisory: Use ‘extreme caution’ around police

But following deadly police shootings this week of black men in Louisiana and Minnesota — and an ambush of white officers in Texas — the island nation on Friday advised its residents to be extra careful if they choose to do travel here.


Texas Open-Carry Laws Blurred Lines Between Suspects and Marchers

Advocates have carried their rifles at the Alamo in San Antonio and outside mosques in the Dallas suburbs. But city and county leaders said the presence of armed protesters openly carrying rifles on Thursday through downtown Dallas had created confusion for the police as the attack unfolded, and in its immediate aftermath made it more difficult for officers to distinguish between suspects and marchers.


The Mission of the Church: Wrapping Up, Part 3 (The Call of the Wild, Part 1)

Here are some quick and easy tests:

  • When your members have more tenure in your church, do they become more entitled and demanding or less?
  • Are your older members harder to please and appease than your younger members?
  • When your members are unhappy, do they voice their unhappiness by economic/power means (withholding money; threatening to leave) or as family (through conversation; persuasion)?
  • When a difficult change is suggested, do the members respond in terms of how this change will affect the members? Or how it will affect the people they plan to invite to church, have a Bible study with, or serve in the name of Jesus?

You Are Smart Enough to Study the Bible

Bible study is never about bare facts or ideas. We study the Bible to know Jesus and have eternal life, to love God and obey him. We aren’t cramming for a test; rather, we need God’s truth to sink deep into our souls. Instead of borrowing the work of others, we need to digest and rejoice over the Bible ourselves.


Biblical Mosaics Discovered in Ancient Synagogue in Israel

While earlier excavations revealed depictions of Samson and the foxes and Samson carrying the gates of Gaza, the latest, carried out this summer, revealed mosaics depicting the story of Noah’s Ark and the parting of the Red Sea.


Inmates break free from cell to help ill jailer

A Parker County jailer who had an apparent heart attack may very well be alive thanks to inmates who put themselves at risk to help him.


Spurs’ immortal Tim Duncan retires without a whimper

That sturdy, I’ve-got-everybody’s-back element is now gone from the Spurs, who were often (and rightly) held up as one of the sports world’s model franchises. But it’s gone from the game, too. It’s hard to imagine that the Duncan blueprint will be duplicated—a four-year college player who comes into the league with a skill set almost fully developed, never bows to free-agent seduction, wins consistently, doesn’t change on or off the court, and then almost tiptoes out the door, no doubt flashing a sly smile at how easily he escaped.


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