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Good Reads

• 5 Reasons to Study Old Testament History: Shakespeare said that history is “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” The Christian view of history is quite a contrast; we believe God ordained it, organizes it, and moves it towards a meaningful, definite, and certain purpose.

• Why the Bodily Resurrection Matters–Especially to Women: We live during a time when women are encouraged to detach from our bodies. Some women do this by putting on male behavior and dress in male-dominated workplaces, while other women detach by using their bodies as sexual power tools. In the face of this ungodly dualism that undermines the holistic self, the Christian response should be more than a defensive reaction. It should be redemptive.

• Syria’s Threatened Christians: Watching their once-shielding dictators fall like dominos across the region, Christians have suddenly found themselves on the wrong side of history.

• What Does It Mean for an Elder to be “Able to Teach”? A Proposal: All elders should be able to stand before the congregation and expound the Bible, even if some elders are uncomfortable preaching in a corporate worship gathering.

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Good Reads

• 5 Problems with Unconditional Forgiveness: While automatic forgiveness sounds like an antidote to bitterness, this is not the case. Those who try and simply dismiss grave offenses, apart from resting in the justice of God, often encounter emotional and theological problems. Here is an incomplete list of problems that sometimes arise from unconditional forgiveness.

• Why Evangelicals Can’t Write: Evangelicals obviously do write, and publish, reams upon reams of prose.  What they have not tended to write is anything recognized as having literary value by the literary world.

• Why Are Evangelicals Supporting Immigration Reform? A big part of the answer, in the bluntest terms, is religious market share. Hispanics go to church; non-Hispanic white people increasingly don’t.

• You’re a Calvinist, Right? The one thing I wish Calvinists would stop accusing Wesleyans of is…Being anthropocentric in their soteriology. Caring more about human free will than God’s glory. [You really should read this outstanding interview with Fred Sanders, a Wesleyan theologian, on what he thinks about Wesleyan theology and Calvinism.]

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Good Reads

• 22 Rules of Storytelling, According to Pixar: On Twitter, Pixar storyboard artist Emma Coats has compiled nuggets of narrative wisdom she’s received working for the animation studio over the years. It’s some sage stuff, although there’s nothing here about defending yourself from your childhood toys when they inevitably come to life with murder in their hearts. A truly glaring omission.

• Hell Is Not Filled with People Who Repent of Sins: People who end up in hell do not repent, from what the Bible tells us, said respected New Testament scholar Don Arthur (D.A.) Carson on Sunday at The Gospel Coalition National Women’s Conference in Orlando.

• The Unfortunate Link between Cultural Castigation and Pitiful Preaching: Advocacy groups are looking at church sermon videos and finding plenty that will enflame the “middle” against those who believe that homosexual behavior is sin….Not surprisingly, videos of unhelpful remarks in churches have surfaced. And, these outrageous videos don’t help.

• Do Jews Have a Divine Right to Israel’s Land? This is the first part in an exchange between John Piper and David Brickner, executive director of Jews for Jesus. You should also check out Piper’s response in How to Treat Rebellious Israel and Brickner’s second post in God Doesn’t Keep Jews in a Pickle Jar.

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Good Reads

• Fathers, Stop Stealing from Your Children: There’s a crime wave going on in your neighborhood—possibly even in your own home. It’s a crime wave that won’t make it to the nightly news, but not because it isn’t serious, for it scars generations and teaches them to commit the same crime.

• Religious Groups Vie for Internet Domain Names: Religious groups have long vied for prime parcels of land, planting churches on town squares and monasteries amid remote mountains. But now they’re targeting real estate in a less tangible sphere: cyberspace.

• How Cereal Transformed American Culture: More than a century ago, Christian fundamentalists invented cereal to promote a healthy lifestyle free of sin. Little did they know, their creation would eventually be used to promote everything from radio and cartoons to Mr. T and tooth decay.

• Grief and the Gospel: we often live as though our theology has nothing to say about what to do with this groaning (which we might call grief). This is strange given the breadth of human experience and emotion portrayed in the pages of scripture. Sackcloth and ashes and weeping and tearing one’s garments were among the many ways that humans historically expressed grief. Groaning took on many forms. In western culture, death seems to be the only valid reason for grieving, and pop psychologists have led the way in helping people navigate those difficult waters.

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More proof that cats are evil

Good Reads

• The Final Battles of Pope Benedict XVI: The mood at the Vatican is apocalyptic. Pope Benedict XVI seems tired, and both unable and unwilling to seize the reins amid fierce infighting and scandal. While Vatican insiders jockey for power and speculate on his successor, Joseph Ratzinger has withdrawn to focus on his still-ambiguous legacy.

• As Baptists Prepare to Meet, Calvinism Debate Shifts to Heresy Accusation: Hundreds, including seminary presidents, have signed a statement on salvation criticized by both Reformed and Arminian theologians.

• James K.A. Smith: Tradition for Innovation: In short, we cannot hope to restore the world if we are constantly reinventing the church; the hard work of innovation requires grounding in a tradition.

• How to Get Senior Leaders to Change: Most executives don’t see themselves as “part of the problem.” Therefore, deep down, they do not believe that it is they who need to change, even though in principle they agree that leaders must model the desired changes.

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Good Reads

• Why Smart People Are Stupid: Although we assume that intelligence is a buffer against bias—that’s why those with higher S.A.T. scores think they are less prone to these universal thinking mistakes—it can actually be a subtle curse.

• How Your View of God Shapes Your View of the Economy: In fact, for many white evangelicals, religious and economic spheres are conceptualized as two sides of the same coin. They describe their worldview as one in which the spiritual and the material are mutually dependent and interactive. And the popularity of this worldview cuts across social class.

• Tuning the Preacher’s Ear: How Good Reading Helps Good Preaching:  Maybe an even more basic reason for the preacher to read fine writers (or listen to fine speakers) is that they will tune the preacher’s ear for language, which is his first tool. From the masters of language the preacher can learn conciseness, rhythm, euphony, and rhetorical devices such as consonance. He can learn to change up his sentence length and sentence functions.

• How Can You Help Relieve Theological Famine Around the World?:And yet, while we in the West often walk out of conferences with huge stacks of free and inexpensive books, much of the rest of the world suffers from a theological famine. In many regions, particularly in the Global South, the cultural, language, economic, and infrastructure barriers mount up. This leaves much of the church vulnerable to false teaching and weakness. God is calling us to address this need.

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