As I was considering how to move from in-person Bible teacher to online Bible nerd, it occurred to me that in my former role as discipleship pastor at a large church, a regular part of my job had been helping connect church members and small group...
Seana Scott is a speaker and award-winning writer with a passion to help Christians live with a well soul through knowing God’s Word, walking with God, and living with purpose. She is the founder of Well Soul Life and hosts the Well Soul...
Kyle R. Hughes (PhD, Radboud University, Nijmegen) is the author of three books, including How the Spirit Became God: The Mosaic of Early Christian Pneumatology and Teaching for Spiritual Formation: A Patristic Approach to Christian Education in a...
“Imagine” is my least favorite Lennon song. Sadly, Lennon isn’t a dreamer at all in this song, though he claims that he is. He’s living without real imagination or hope, foolishly thinking that the answer to death and war, greed and hunger, is to be...
Elliot Ritzema is an editor at Lexham Press and a master of sacred theology student at Nashotah House Theological Seminary. He is the editor of Lexham’s Spurgeon Commentary series. He has a master’s of divinity degree from Regent College...
Another Week of Prayer for Christian Unity has passed, and a recent picture of current Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, blessing Pope Francis has, at least in some quarters, generated controversy. Recent convert to Catholicism and former...
The only thing taller than the Burj Khalifa is the stack of books I’m currently intending to read. I like to read. I like to read fiction, non-fiction, cookbooks, news stories, human interest pieces, jokes, and Twitter threads. I like to read the...
God himself is love (1 John 4:8). Love for God is the greatest commandment. Love for others is the second (Matt 22:34–40). Love is the greatest Christian virtue. But what is love? That is a rather important question. Similar questions come to mind ...
The Nicene Creed is the most widely used confession of faith in the world—and has been for more than a thousand years. Sunday after Sunday in their worship services, Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholics, Lutherans, Anglicans, and others recite the...
Sometimes we feel spiritually dry. When your own inner life feels more barren than bountiful, James 4:8 offers a two-step path toward spiritual renewal and refreshment: Confession Repentance. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your...
If Revelation were the first book of the Bible you read, you’d be very confused. Chronologically, it comes last. But what about the other books of the Bible? They’re not in order by date. (Most scholars believe Mark was written before Matthew, for...
How many different ways can we apologize to God? Quite a few, actually. And in the ancient prayers of God’s people—in Scripture and outside it—their focus quite often turned to confession or its many related expressions: remorse, guilt...
The simplest definition of prayer is talking to God. While that’s certainly true, prayer is also a unique place where we experience the breadth and depth of the Christian life. Still, prayer isn’t easy—even though it’s one of the most vital parts of...
Is Christmas a Christian holiday? Yes. Yes, it is. I’m being definitive up front because so many today are committed to the public and often gleeful discrediting of Christmas. Some such naysayers are devoutly Christian and seeking earnestly to...
I drove past the Christmas light display in the center of town and my preschooler gazed at the glistening colors and yelled, Jesus is the light of the world! She no doubt learned this in Sunday school, but is Jesus a string of red and green lights...
I came to faith in Christ at the age of sixteen because two church ladies shared the gospel with me. The year I became a Christian, the Holy Spirit ignited curiosity within me, especially regarding the characters in the Bible. Thankfully, I now...
When I was sixteen, a youth ministry challenged me to share my faith with my family and classmates. I had grown up in and out of church and didn’t know much of the Bible beyond the epic Sunday school stories most people with some church background...
When God established the feasts in the Old Testament, he set milestones to remind his people about who he was and how he had rescued them (over and over). While many Christians no longer celebrate the feasts, there are still plenty of places on our...
I have a confession: I’ve been a full-time evangelist for over two decades and I rarely do the job you think I do. In a moment, I’ll tell you more about what I actually do. More importantly, I want you to know what evangelism really is, why it is...
The only way to get think rightly about spiritual warfare is to tie ourselves to what God says in Scripture. So what does the Bible say about spiritual warfare and the demonic realm?
Poet Robert Frost famously wrote about two roads that diverged in a yellow wood, and he expressed regret that he could not take both paths. This captures a universal human experience: as finite humans, a yes to one path is necessarily a no to the...
When you saw that this article was going to be about lust, which Bible verses came to mind? My guess is that you started out with the command about adultery and then remembered Jesus’s words about lusting after women (and cutting off your hand). And...
Even beyond the earliest examples in the book of Acts, Christians throughout history have experienced many of the same challenges and frustrations we face. They wrestled with materialism and obedience to God, with sharing their faith and worries and...
“Take now your son, your only son whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering” (Gen 22:2). Chilling words. Abraham, however, does not ask questions. He doesn’t need a clarification; he makes no...
No doubt we’ve all heard somewhere that money is the root of all evil. The saying is deeply embedded in popular wisdom. But is it really true?
Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you your heart’s desires (Ps 37:4). This oft-quoted verse has profound implications for the believer. Before we can explore the landscape of this powerful statement, it’s important we take note of its...
Though the Sermon on the Mount gets most of the attention, the Gospel of Luke records another major teaching event regarding the kingdom of God (Luke 6:20–49), known as the Sermon on the Plain. Concerning that sermon, this article will take up the...
One of the issues that most divides Christians is the relationship between the book of Genesis and modern science. A central question is the age of the earth; closely related questions include the impact of the Fall of humanity on the world, as well...
Who doesn’t love good literature? This is especially true of a Christian book that enriches the soul and encourages growth in your walk with Christ. If you’ve had any exposure to this genre, you’re probably familiar with A Pilgrim’s Progress, Foxe’s...
Envy typically means the desire for something someone else has. It can be used as a noun or a verb. So, for example, we might avoid envy (the noun) or we might envy someone (the verb). Jealousy is a close cousin, though it’s often interchanged with...