In our digital age, Christian leaders are increasingly called to be a “curator of resources”. Here are five resources that I believe will challenge you, sharpen your life in Christ, and generally bless you as you seek to follow Jesus:  

The Question of Marriage

The first resource that I heartily recommend (and thus place it at the top of this list) is a lengthy podcast about marriage from Tim and Kathy Keller. So many nuggets of wisdom. You could listen to it twice and be blessed both times!

Podcast: “Marriage and Our Culture” ~ Tim & Kathy Keller from the “Gospel in Life” podcast.

The Question of “I love Jesus but Not the Church” Posture in America

An interviewer gives John Piper a scenario very much alive in 21st century American religiosity.

Interviewer: What about the scenario - “I’m not walking away from Jesus, but I’m done with the church.”

John Piper: “If you do that, you’re walking away from Jesus” 

See the video here: https://twitter.com/brmorris/status/1713087443849593238

Trevin Wax explores this dynamic in a blog post entitled “Prone to DeChurch, Lord I Feel It”.

“While not ruling out the choice of a believer to walk away from a particular congregation, Piper stressed the impossibility of thinking someone could follow Christ and leave the church altogether. ‘To walk away from the church is to walk away from Christ,’ he said…..if you zoom out of our contemporary Western setting, you find that Piper’s comments about following Jesus and belonging to the church are standard fare for nearly all Christians around the world today, as has been the case for nearly all of church history…

We can go back even further, to the New Testament itself, to see this connection between following Christ and belonging to his people. The church is the body of Christ (Rom. 12:4–5; 1 Cor. 12:12; Eph. 1:23; Col. 1:24). It’s impossible to cling to the head of Christ without doing the same to his body…

…An unchurched Christian, as John Stott pointed out, is ‘a grotesque anomaly’. . . . The New Testament knows nothing of such a person.” ~Trevin Wax

What is the Factor of Why Most People Attend Church?

The answer may surprise you, especially if you went through the “worship wars” of the 1990s or you have recognized the relational poverty that characterizes our era, where people are desperate for community and connection. The answer to “Why Do People Come to Church” is this:

A Gallup poll indicates that it’s neither the music (38%) nor community (49%) nor the kids or youth ministry (64%) as the leading number one reason of why people come to church. That distinction belongs to preaching (75%). As Brandon Hilgemann argues: “Three-quarters of the people come to church because of the preaching.”

Check out Brandon Hilgemann’s blog: “Fact: Preaching is Why People Attend Church”.

Check out the Gallup Poll entitled: “Sermon Content is What Appeals to Most Churchgoers”.

The Question of “Do you actually know the Scriptures”?

I recently recommended the best long answer essay that I know on infant baptism was written by Dr. Gregg Strawbridge. A staff member sent me this vignette written by a mentee about Greg Strawbridge himself:

“When I was first ordained, Gregg inserted himself onto my examination committee with the primary intention, I am convinced, of giving me a good-natured ritual hazing. One of the questions he asked me has now become something of ecclesiastical lore in my old communion. “How important would you say the Psalms are to the life of the Christian?” Gregg asked. I immediately began extolling the Book of Psalms as the prayerbook of the church, a model for both personal devotion and public worship, even a divine hymnal of sorts. I spoke of its role in spiritual warfare and how it prophesied the messiah. All very high and pious-sounding stuff. “Ok, great answer,” Gregg said. “Now I wonder if you could just work through each of the psalms, giving us a one or two sentence summary of what they say.” I laughed, wondering if the question was serious or not. But here we all were, on the floor of my ordination exam. This was on the record. “They don’t have to be exact quotes,” he smilingly reassured me. So, I tried to get started and made it to about Psalm 3 before sputtering out. “Oh that’s ok. You know, for some people it helps to jog their memory if they work backwards. Maybe you could try starting with Psalm 150.” On this second try, I made it through Psalm 148.  There was a sort of playfulness to this, for sure. But Pastor Strawbridge also wanted to make a point. It’s all well and good to have strong theology and good ideas about the Scriptures. It’s another thing entirely to know the Scriptures.”

The Question of Moral Proximity

“Proximity and Plausibility: Why Do People Behave Contrary to their Beliefs?” by Samuel D. James:

Samuel James: Why do self-described pro-life people still get abortions? Freddie Deboer’s recent piece isn’t interested as much in answering this question as simply pointing out the fact that there are, indeed, people who do this. Freddie observes that abortion rights are a “revealed preference,” meaning how people actually behave in the marketplace—i.e., what they consume/buy/obtain for themselves—is a more accurate indicator of who they are than their stated political views.

He’s right about this. Freddie makes this observation in the context of celebrating legal abortion, but the same point is made by Christian professor David Ayers in his recent book After the Revolution: Sex and the Single Evangelical. The entire book is a compendium of research showing how American evangelicals say they believe sex is sacred, meant only for marriage, but behave as if they don’t. In fact, in the introduction, Ayers mentions that when he was teaching at a small fundamentalist school, he was told by the director of a local crisis pregnancy center that several students from the school had recently visited the center but decided to get abortions.

So here’s the question: When people who engage in pro-life activism, sign student covenants, and assent to traditional Christian teachings have premarital sex and get abortions, are they proving that they really don’t believe that? Certainly this is possible. There are lots of reasons why someone would feign certain convictions; pressure to conform, wanting approval from parents, etc. Absolutely, that happens. But I think Freddie’s concept of the “revealed preference” is insightful here. I wonder if in many cases, these people really do believe that abstinence until marriage is best and that unborn babies are human persons. But these convictions are connected to thick plausibility structures which can get suddenly, and forcefully, challenged. And the further away a person finds themselves from that conviction’s plausibility structure, the less likely they are to actually make life harder or less pleasureable for themselves for the sake of it.

Abortion makes this very obvious. As Freddie points out, a pro-life woman who gets an abortion will almost certainly reason that her particular situation is exceptional. She might even admit that it’s wrong. But the alternative to the abortion is so unthinkable, so impossible to contemplate, that she simply absorbs the moral offense. What is that alternative? Having a baby. Thus, for some who ascribe to pro-life worldview, the plausibility structure of their convictions is life without an unprepared-for child. When that structure fades, the conviction doesn’t go away, it just feels much further away.

Same thing with premarital sex. There is obviously a big difference between saying you are waiting for marriage when you live at home, have no car, and little realistic opportunity to sleep with somebody. Thus, the plausibility structure of sexual abstinence could be life without an urgent sense of desire and/or opportunity. In a college dorm, this plausibility structure disappears. Again, it’s not that the person stops believing something, or that they never actually believed it in the first place. It’s that putting conviction up against a hot and heavy moment of desire and opportunity is, for the vast majority of people, an unfair fight. It’s not about what they believe; it’s about what they prefer.

For a couple years now I’ve been fleshing out the idea that proximity creates plausibility. In other words, the place you’re at, the moment you inhabit, the people and words and objects around you—these are all live wires jolting your soul. People are not robots whose convictions are uploaded into their motherboards from age 0 to 18, who then go through life pre-programmed. Rather, human nature is constantly responsive to our situations. We believe, but we also feel, and these feelings are deeply contextual and in turn shape our beliefs. Behaviors can make more sense to us the more we watch them, the more we give our attention to them. Ideas can commend themselves to us the more time we spend contemplating them—actually, the more time we spend around them.

The key text for this idea is Proverbs 7. Have you ever wondered why Solomon goes out of his way to describe in great detail the encounter between a foolish dude and an adulterous woman? It seems at first glance that Solomon takes a long time to tell a very simple story. But I think Solomon belabors the details—the time of day the boy goes by her house, what she’s wearing, and what she says—because he wants us to feel just how powerful this moment is. Every aspect of this interaction builds up a plausibility structure of illicit desire, to the point that not even the boy’s best logic can resist. For Solomon, the lesson is clear. He concludes not with, “Resist her charms” or “counter her lies,” but: “Do not stray into her paths.”

I’m sure many people will read this and think, “Well that’s 15 minutes of my life I can’t get back.” All of this may sound very obvious to you. But let me push back on that for a minute. In the age of the Internet, how obvious is the relationship between proximity and plausibility? How intuitive is it actually? I don’t think it’s intuitive at all. I think the digital age has made this concept deeply counter-intuitive. All of us feel in control of our input. All of us feel in command of our virtual worlds. And yet all of us have instantaneous, un-filtered, completely private access to every single behavior, idea, or identity imaginable. Everything, all of the time. We literally inhabit a digital universe that possesses the power, every second of the day, to conjure up any image, any scenario, any how-to, any bigotry, any kink, any manifesto, any truth-claim…..anything we want. “Desensitized” is too small a word for our imaginations in the computer age. We are constantly on the precipice of human (and nonhuman) imagination, every, single, day.

Let us grant that proximity creates plausibility. Let us also grant that the modern, 5G-connected person is proximate to just about anything, from violent pornography to kinism to “how to make a bomb.” What kind of plausibility structure is arising out of this? Just how far out are the limits of our conscience expanding? And why don’t we seem to talk about this more?

Any framework for Christian witness in the 21st century—much less any framework for political theology or the wielding of power—must account for this. Any framework that doesn’t cannot comprehend the modern situation.

You can subscribe to Samuel James’ “Digital Liturgies” online.

"The Bible will keep you from sin, or sin will keep you from the Bible.” ~ Dwight L. Moody

How do you, at the same time:

• relativize your own feelings (because they often lead you astray)

• know “the good” and keep your life pointed in that direction

• minimize sin while increasing joy

• know the truth and understand how to live truly free

• become wise, increasingly knowledgeable about how to live well

• understand there is a “word from God to you” that has already been spoken

• soak in the height and length and breadth and width of the love of God

• know such a great salvation, that you are united to Jesus Christ, the Son of God

• practice the faith by breathing in the words of God and breathing out prayers to God

• become like Jesus in quoting scriptures to keep the devil at bay

• know your sin, so you can daily repent and believe in the gospel

• know your Father who so loves you that he has numbered every hair on your head

You pick up the Word. You meditate on the Word. You study the Word. You submit your life to the Word. You choose the Word every time rather than the voice of your culture, your fears, your failures.

You let the Word lead you to the Word Incarnate.

As you breathe in the Word of God, you breathe out worship, you breathe out prayers, you breathe out gratitude.

There are lots of Bible reading plans: here are 20 options.

I’m going back to one that I created a few years ago called The Gospel-Centered, Wisdom-Inspired Bible Reading Plan that allows you to:

• Read the Gospels 2x per year. (I want to keep Jesus’ life and teachings always before me; hence - the “Gospel-Centered” part of the plan.)

• Read the NT Epistles and Letters 2x per year.

• Read the OT Wisdom Literature 1x per year (I want to worship, lament, and acquire wisdom from God; hence - the “Wisdom-Inspired” part of the plan.)

• Read the rest of the OT once every two years

• While reading 4 chapters a day Monday-Friday.

 “The Scriptures teach us the best way of living, the noblest way of suffering, and the most comfortable way of dying.” ~ John Flavel

Why preach on the doctrine of predestination and election? The short answer is because it is in the Bible! Twice in Ephesians 1 , the word “predestined” appears (vs. 5, 11). Paul is not ashamed of the doctrine; quite the contrary, he praises God for this “glorious grace” (vs. 6).

In Paul’s farewell discourse to the Ephesians elders, he defended his apostolic ministry with these words: “For I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27).

The whole counsel of God. Including doctrines that make you bend the knee before the Lord even if it means it breaks your brain. Some ignore the doctrine. Some “yeah but” the doctrine to death. Yet, at the end of the day, you have to actually interpret Ephesians 1.

Here is my (somewhat expanded) sermon entitled “The Father’s Purpose” from Ephesians 1:4-6.

I begin by answering FOUR COMMON OBJECTIONS to the doctrine of predestination & election before delving into the main text of the sermon.

When you open the apostle Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, gone is the hard-driving contentiousness of Galatians or the myriad of sticky holiness issues of 2nd Corinthians. In Ephesians, the vision is grand, the theology is stirring, and the prayers are beautiful. Ephesians is like theology set to a majestic score of music: gospel truth that sings and praises and prays.

Ephesians is theology on bended knee with practical implications for living.

Paul’s letters typically begin with greetings and blessings, followed by with prayers of thanksgiving and intercession, before delving into the main teaching part of the letter.  Ephesians is different. Paul’s theological ideas (1:3-3:21) are woven into the very fabric of prayer:

• The initial benediction (1:3-14) reflects upon the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit’s purposes in the lives of believers.

• The prayer of thanksgiving and intercession (1:15-23) highlights gospel truths of our glorious inheritance and Christ’s exaltation as the Lord and Head of the Church, then Paul reminds us of the benefits of grace (2:1-10) and of both Jew and Gentile living together as united and reconciled people (2:11-22).

• At 3:1, Paul resumes his prayer but suddenly interrupts himself again (you aren’t the only one!) to revel in the mystery of the gospel which calls forth the church and his own role in God’s plan (3:2-13).

• Paul finally closes his prayer (3:14-19) with intercession for believers to experience the breadth and length and height and depth of Christ’s unsurpassed love before closing with a memorable doxology (3:20-21). And that’s only the first three chapters!

As the desert monk Evagrius said, “The one who prays is a theologian; the one who is a theologian, prays.” Paul would have agreed!  

EPHESIANS at a GLANCE:

Ephesians can be laid out simply:

The Wealth (chapters 1-3)

The Walk (chapters 4-5)

The Warfare (chapter 6:10ff)

PRISON EPISTLE

Ephesians is one of the four “Prison Epistles” of Paul (along with Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon):

“For this reason, I, Paul, a prisoner for Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles” (3:1).

  “I therefore, a prison for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called” (4:1).

“For which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it [the gospel] boldly, as I ought to speak” (6:20).

Paul wrote Ephesians (probably in 62 AD) from a Roman jail, often reminding his readers of his predicament.  

Paul in Ephesus in the Book of Acts

Paul spent two occasions in the city of Ephesus in the book of Acts. His first stint (52 AD) was brief (Acts 18:18-21). Paul’s second stay in Ephesus (53-56 AD) saw him engaging in highly fruitful ministry (Acts 19:1-41; Acts 20:17-38) for over two years:

“And God was doing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, so that even handkerchiefs or aprons that had touched his skin were carried away to the sick, and their diseases left them and evil spirits came out of them” (Acts 19:11-12). Extraordinary indeed!

The ministry was so fruitful that people broke in mass with the Ephesian obsession with magic and the occult. New believers brought their magic books to be burned in the public square. Luke records that the early church counted the price of books: 50,000 pieces of silver (Acts 19:19), equivalent to 50,000 days of wages! A massive movement to Christ was taking place that challenged the prevailing cultural truths of the day.

The sales of silver dropped dramatically! Sales of little dolls of Artemis plummeted in the city. One silversmith by the name of Demetrius was so incensed that he stirred up a riot and the whole city was thrown into confusion and chanted “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” (Acts 19:23-34) The gospel always confronts the harmful, hurtful, and untruthful ideologies of man.

In Acts 20:17, Paul stopped at Miletus (30 miles to the north of Ephesus) and bid farewell to the Ephesian elders for the final time in a moving and heartfelt speech warning the church of “fierce wolves” (Acts 20:29) but also reminding the elders that he did not “shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God (Acts 20:27).

As a personal note, my own mentor, Rev. David Bridgman, on his death bed in a hospital in Orlando a few years ago, read this verse over my own life moments before his death: “And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified” (Acts 20:32). Like the Ephesian elders, it was a moment I will never forget.

Ephesus, the Great City

Ephesus lay 4 km inland from the Aegean Sea on the west coast of modern Turkey. Outside of Rome and Athens, Ephesus was the 3rd most important city in the Roman Empire, boasting a population of 250,000 and sitting along the largest trading route uniting the Eastern and Western parts of the Roman Empire. Ephesus boasted the largest building in the known world, the famous temple of Artemis, which was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The Temple of Artemis (the goddess of sexual fertility) was four-times as big as the Parthenon in Athens and bigger than any modern-day football field, which is one reason why Paul probably used a temple-analogy to describe the church:

“…Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord” (2:20).

Ephesus was also obsessed with magic, the occult, and demons, which is why Paul spoke about cosmic principalities and powers and Christ’s lordship over them (“for we do not wrestle with flesh and blood, but…against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” 6:12). Paul was adamant: Christ is the exalted Lord seated at the right hand of God “far above all rule and authority and power and dominion” (1:21).

Themes of the Letter

• Our Identity “in Christ”. Paul uses the words “in Christ” or its equivalent 36 times in the letter. Believers are united to the exalted Lord who is the Christ. The precisely grammarly construction “in the heavenly places” is not found elsewhere in Paul but in Ephesians occurs five times (1:3; 20; 2:6; 3:10; 6:12). Believers have been blessed in Christ “with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places (1:3) and are seated with Christ “in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (2:6) where Christ reigns triumphant over all earthly powers. Our identity is united to a powerful and exalted Christ! In addition, pay close attention to the Pauline phrase “all things” (1:10, 11, 23; 3:9; 4:10, 15; 5:13). Whether Christ’s rule extends over creation, salvation, or the coming consummation, Christ’s dominion extends over “all things” in the cosmos.  

• The Unity in the Gospel for the People of God. A spiritual fellowship unites believers to one another. The word ekklesia (the church) occurs nine times in Ephesians (1:22, 3:10, 21; 5:23, 24, 25, 27, 29, 32); Paul’s favorite images of the church include “the body of Christ” (1:22-23; cf. 2:16; 4:4, 12, 16; 5:23, 30), “the holy temple” (2:22; cf. 1 Cor. 3:16-17), and the “bride of Christ” (5:21-33) – all images which connect the body intimately and spiritually to its head who is Christ.

  As I never tire of saying: “Christ is the Head of the Christ”. Therefore, “All ministry is Christ’s ministry” -- Christ always gets all the glory in His church (“to the praise of His glory”, 1:12, 14, cf. 1:6).

Other themes include: Putting on the new self in Christ in thoughts, motivations, words, and deeds while putting off sinful habits; engaging in a spiritual battle in our pilgrim calling; walking in manner worthy of our identity in holiness and love.

In short, Ephesians is filled with gospel truths for gospel living!

1.     Having “The Talk” about the Birds & the Bees with Teenagers?

Tim Keller’s The Meaning of Marriage has an excellent chapter on “Sex & Marriage”. For Christian parents, “The Birds & the Bees” talk is more than simple biology; there is a theological and biblical aspect to passing down the Christian sexual ethic which doesn’t simplistically stigmatize sex as “dirty & bad” but rather beautifully acknowledges the “goodness & glory” of sex within the framework of the covenantal relationship of marriage between one man and one woman.

You can download that chapter here.

2.     What about married couples struggling with sex?

For many Christians, sex is an aspect of our humanity that needs redemption: past sexual abuse, rape, pornography, adultery, shame, and unrequited love (just to name a few) complicate the beauty and goodness of sex for many. Some Christians raised in a legalistic church have a difficult time celebrating the beauty and passion of sex with disastrous results for their marriage.

Mike Mason’s The Mystery of Marriage is a delightfully profound and moving book on marriage. I highly recommend it!

His chapter on sex is a beautiful treatment of sex because sex represents not simply a physical union of two bodies but also reveals deep spiritual truths -- sex is sacred ground.

You can download that chapter here.

3.     What about homosexuality?

Kevin DeYoung’s What Does the Bible Really Teach about Homosexuality? is a simple and short read about an important topic for Christians in the 21st century. At less than 150 pages, you will discover what the Bible says about homosexuality from the Old Testament into the New Testament.

DeYoung also anticipates several objections that Christians will hear in today’s world in holding to a biblical worldview and the historic, orthodox view on human sexuality.

You can buy the book on amazon. 

4.     What about Biblical Masculinity & Biblical Femininity?

Most Christian books on masculinity and femininity only delve into “roles in the church”. Larry Crabb’s Fully Alive: A Biblical Vision of Gender that Frees Men and Women to Live Beyond Stereotypes is a lonely exception to that general rule.

Dr. Crabb delves into the relationality of biblical masculinity and biblical femininity in ways that are deeply penetrating for relating as gendered image bearers to the glory of God. Prepare to be changed!

You can buy the book on amazon. 

In Case You Missed it….

5.     This Cultural Moment: A Sermon

How did Jesus engage the various political parties of his day? How does the “Genesis Blueprint” of God creating male and female in his image (Gen. 1:26-28) speak to our cultural moment where transgenderism is being celebrated? 

In the first sermon in the series “God’s Design, Our Bodies, and This Cultural Moment”, I give a few opening thoughts on gender in today’s world while clearing the necessary “space” to have the conversation in the first place.

You can download the written sermon here.

6.     How Did We Get to the Point in our Society where Transgenderism is Being Celebrated?

That is the question Carl Trueman sets out to answer in the form of an intellectual history in his book The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution.

“The Triumph of the T” can be summarized in three movements:

i.  Psychologize the Self: “I am what I feel.”

ii. Sexualize the Psychology: “I am what I feel sexually.”

iii. Politicize the Sexuality: “I will cancel you if you don’t celebrate my sexualized identity.”

You can download the 5-Session Discussion Guide here: “God’s Design, Our Bodies, and this Cultural Moment”.

We are living in a cultural moment where “everything is political” and where “sex has become politicized”. How do Christians respond? In this sermon, I propose a framework for a winsome and wise cultural engagement that goes beyond modern divisive politics.

How did Jesus engage the various political parties of his day? How does the “Genesis Blueprint” of God creating male and female in his image (Gen. 1:26-28) speak to our cultural moment where transgenderism is being celebrated?

What were the unique identifying features of the Early Church that wooed and wowed the entire Mediterranean world for the Cause of Christ? Considering that the Roman Empire was hostile to Christianity and propagated moral and sexual ethics that were vastly different than the church, the Early Church’s countercultural stance was nonetheless attractive to the masses.

Moderns tend to think that relevance makes Christianity attractive. What the Early Church experienced was that being counter-cultural, especially over and against a culture that was deeply flawed and deeply fallen, was itself supremely attractive.

There is always an offense to the gospel. To a fallen world, the ethics downstream from the cross is always offensive.

To read the sermon in its entirety, click here: THIS CULTURAL MOMENT.

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Suffice it to say, Most of my sermons are not heavily footnoted. Yet, because of the complex nature of the discussion, I happily leaned on several scholars. I not only cite those in the footnotes out of customary acknowledgement of the source but also to give you a chance to follow up and do your own reading, if so desired.