Every day, we’re crawling toward Sunday. Because every seven days, the world over, the Christian church gathers to celebrate the life, death, resurrection, and soon return of Jesus Christ our Lord. Through Scripture and prayer, songs and sermons, confession and supplication, joy and lament, we haul our broken bodies and heavy souls back to the place … More Crawling to Sunday
How much does it hurt when someone slanders you? How long does it stay with you when someone shares negative things about you with others? How deep does it go when someone slices into your reputation with twisted words you know don’t represent the truth? Slander is serious business. It poisons hearts and fractures friendships. … More Five Slippery Steps toward Slander
Bryan Baise is a beloved professor at Boyce College, soon-to-be PhD in philosophy, husband to Danielle and father of three, and my friend and office neighbor. When I was in Student Life, students talked constantly about his classes, and I always found him deeply compassionate and wise when we worked together to help students who … More “He Withholds No Good Thing from Us”: Marriage, Miscarriage, and the Goodness of God (by Bryan Baise)
ASKED: A New Feature This semester I’m teaching 230 students in four biblical counseling classes at Boyce College, the undergraduate school at Southern Seminary. CN101a: Introduction to Biblical Counseling CN101b: Introduction to Biblical Counseling CN201: Methods of Biblical Counseling CN481: Counseling Skills Development I Depending on time and topic, students ask 10-20 questions per class, and many … More ASKED: Should a younger Christian ever correct an older Christian?
Do you take journeys, or only trips? What’s the difference, you ask? A journey is less destination-specific than a trip. On a trip, you’re headed somewhere in particular. You know where you’re going, how you’re going to get there, and how long you’re going to stay. But on a journey, you don’t always know when, where, or … More The Journey Begins
Occasionally I post responses to questions I receive from my students or other readers. Here’s my answer to a question that came by email recently. Student Question: When David is lamenting his pursuers and the dangers he’s facing, are we to interpret those only as human enemies, or can we apply the idea to the workings … More The Enemies in the Psalms (Student Question)
College is supposed to teach you many things, and those many things are all important in their own way. The big ones, of course, are pretty comprehensive, like character, virtue, a mind awake, and a noble work ethic. The next tier is more personalized but still vital: a major, a vocational direction, and a set … More The Main Thing: Gospel-Rich Theology and the Students of Boyce College
There are some things you never forget. Back in 2002, during my last semester in college, Professor Todd Bolen returned my final assignment for his History of Ancient Israel class. He had spent an hour grading my 10-page paper and had stapled a full page of typed comments to the back. I’ll never forget what he wrote, … More Twenty-Five Tweets on Writing
If you think that white-black, black-white, and black-black ethnic tensions are a thing of the past, a closed chapter of history; if you’re willfully insulated into the view that everyone just needs to “get over it”; or if you still have a hard time acknowledging or accepting the deep and complex intricacies of the African American struggle both in our nation and … More “Dark Girls” Preview
This is a question I’ve asked myself more and more the older I’ve gotten. It grows more haunting as the years go by, perhaps because each passing year is a big step closer to actually meeting Him. Not that haunted is the only thing I feel when I anticipate meeting Jesus. But you get the point. … More Would I Like Jesus If I Met Him?
This song has greatly encouraged and refreshed me this week since we sang it in chapel on Monday. Perhaps this (below) is a faint resemblance of what the heavenly assemblies will be like, with every tribe, tongue, people, and nation represented, with lives of holiness that will forever match the heat of our singing, and with Jesus … More Stronger
I’ve spent the last year adjusting to a leadership position where there are so many little things demanding attention and so many trivial topics clamoring for discussion that it’s frighteningly easy to neglect the things that matter most. I don’t yet know if most of life is like this. I anticipate that this temptation is present everywhere, … More The Things That Matter Most
Another prominent yet subtle false dichotomy is fellowship and evangelism (I’m thinking of specific expressions of this divide at TMC along with general expressions in contemporary, western Christianity at large). Happily, there’s currently a reformative trend towards missional living that’s long overdue, and I for one rejoice at God’s continued (and needed) work in my own … More Dean’s Series, Part 5: Fellowship and Evangelism
It’s been an intense month of growth and a full week of ministry. Last Sunday I taught Proverbs 8:12-21 in our adult Sunday School class. On Monday I preached in chapel on Romans 8:32. On Tuesday and Thursday I substituted in the “Problems and Procedures” counseling class teaching on how to counsel believers wrestling with same-sex attraction. … More This Week and Beyond
We live in the self-proclaimed Information Age. Give me an hour and a decent internet connection and I can be an expert on anything. If I don’t know it, I’ll Google it or Wikipedia it (two verbs that weren’t verbs just a few years ago). If I know it but can’t prove it, I’ll go … More Shallow Knowledge
A lot has been said about the emerging and emergent movements, contemporary calls for relevance, the debated value of cultural analysis, and the Pauline call to be “all things to all men” (1 Cor 9). These are the hot-button topics at the evangelical table (or behind the evangelical woodshed). They are important topics and these … More Who’s Emerging for the Widows? Thoughts on Missional Partiality
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