Yesterday, I shared half of the most viewed posts of 2024. Today, I will share the top five posts; the most read posts of 2024.
Again, let me say thank you for reading this year. I am grateful to everyone who has interacted with me. Whether you agree or you don’t, thank you for taking the time to read. As I said yesterday, I don’t expect nor aim for full agreement with anything I write here. I have the more modest aim of wanting to be broadly interesting and spark a bit of thought.
I am also grateful to those of you who comment. Your comments serve me in three key ways. First, they help me to think more deeply about what I have written. They sometimes cause me to change my mind other times they highlight where I need to say more or clarify matter to properly make my case. All comments – whether agreeing or disagreeing – are usually helpful for this.
Second, you provide me with more things to write about. Without question, the hardest part of blogging is content creation. It is always helpful when people disagree because it usually means there is something more to write. It might mean adding stuff I didn’t cover, it might mean clarifying where I wasn’t clear or addressing arguments I hadn’t dealt with (or encountered) before.
Third, your comments help generate traffic for me. The more people who comment the more widely read the blog becomes. The more you comment online, share posts, offer further opinion on what is here, you help me reach a wider audience. Your comments – whatever they may be, whether in agreement or not – all help to bring more traffic here and encourage further engagement with what I write. So please, if you are willing and able, do comment and share – whether here or on social media platform – it is particularly helpful to me.
So, with that all that said, here are the top five most read posts written in 2024.
Christmas isn’t in the Bible so can’t measure spirituality & shouldn’t bind consciences
The fifth most read post of the year is my annual reminder that Christmas isn’t in the Bible and so shouldn’t bind any consciences. You can celebrate (or not) however you like without impeding your walk with Jesus or it saying a great deal about your spiritual walk. We are free to celebrate and free not to, we are free to celebrate and make the season entirely about Jesus or free to celebrate as a broadly secular festival. However you celebrate (or if you celebrate) do it all to the glory of God.
Why we haven’t turned off our live stream
At number 4, here is a post – in response to another article making the case for turning off (or making more private) your church live stream – about why we haven’t turned our live stream off since setting it up. If you read both Tim Challies’ original article and my follow up article, you will get two different views on what to do with your live stream from two people coming from similar positions concerned about the same things.
The single most encouraging thing for a pastor
The third most read post of 2024 is this little article about what will most encourage your pastor. There are lots of potential answers here, but I offer my thoughts on what being a pastor is all about and, as a result, what will encourage your pastor in his ministry more than just about anything else. If you want to encourage your pastor throughout 2025, this is worth reading before you make your New Year’s resolutions.
Whether to attend weddings, how we should view Alistair Begg’s comments and matters of wisdom
In yesterday’s rundown, the 10th most read post on my blog was the first in a series concerning Alistair Begg’s controversial comments on whether or not it was okay for an orthodox believer, whose views are widely known and understood, to attend a LGBT wedding of a family member. That post was just about outlining the various issues involved and thinking about how we ought to view believers who differ from us on this question. As it happens, the second most read blog post of 2024 was my final one in that series in which I offered my particular view of the issue at hand having (hopefully) made clear my view on how we should view people who differ to us on this specific question.
Are Catholics Christian?
And finally, the number 1 most read blog post of 2024 is a fairly recent one on whether Catholic can be considered Christian. It may seem like an odd question with a fairly obvious answer – which probably explain why it was so widely read – but it aims to explain why so many Protestants would come to the answer ‘no’ (and, incidentally, why Catholics would – at least officially – say the same about Protestants).