Your marriage doesn’t need better communication
‘It’s perhaps the most frequent issue that is brought to the table when Angel (my wife and counselor) and I meet with couples. At the core of many marriage seminars and conferences is the issue of how to improve the communication in your marriage. I don’t buy it. Your marriage doesn’t need better communication.’
Why “proverbs aren’t promises” is misleading
‘Pick up a book with Bible-reading advice, and you’ll barely get your nose in before it gets mashed with the ubiquitous yet astonishingly forceful declaration: Proverbs aren’t promises! This piece of conventional wisdom is everywhere. Though it has roots in careful thinking about the genre of wisdom literature, this advice often goes too far and misses the point of the proverbs.’
Make Announcements Great Again
On the back of a post I wrote a short while ago about not being embarrassed by our notices and not purging them from our meetings, Dave Williams offers some thoughts on exactly how we might make them better.
Have you thought much about the Urim and Thummim?
You probably haven’t spent a great deal of time thinking about them. This one not only takes a look at what they were and how they were used, but thinks about what this tells us about the Bible more generally and how we ought to understand some of the stranger stuff in it.
We can’t come down
‘When Sanballat and his lackeys tried to distract Nehemiah from his labor with accusations and threats, he remained atop the wall with hammer in hand and responded, “I am doing a great work and I cannot come down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and come down to you?” (Neh. 6:3). Nehemiah doesn’t catastrophize. He doesn’t lose sleep. He doesn’t let Sanballat live rent free in his mind. Why? Because he was a builder, and he had more constructive things to do. Despite innumerable broadsides against the church, the body stands… Revivals and renewals are popping across Gen Z. Conversions happen every day. Addictions are defeated. Sin is mortified. Why? Because pastors, ministry leaders, and lay people had the boldness to stay on the wall, keep their hands on their hammers and say, we can’t come down.’
How Christians can fight the war on lies
In light of my post on Friday, this one seems worth sharing.
From the archive: Four questions to ask potential workers
‘Just because we need workers doesn’t means we want anybody. We have learnt that to our own cost. Assuming you are willing to consider moving to a deprived place – whether Oldham or somewhere else – here are some important questions that we are going to have to work through before we say you are the right person for us.’