There is an important phrase buried in the middle of 1 Samuel 18:12-14. “The Lord was with him”. It is important for us to learn what that means, not least because it is also clear that The Lord sometimes departs from someone. This was a major prompt for Saul’s jealousy of David. As usual when considering something like this it is useful to look at other passages where this phrase is used. What are the marks of The Lord being... Read more
We saw just a couple of chapters ago that Saul’s son Jonathan was the darling of Israel, having boldly led the charge to defeat an enemy. He was strangely silent in the whole account of Goliath, where David eclipsed both Jonathan and his father. Saul had already demonstrated he was a a selfish leader so it is perhaps no surprise that instead of welcoming David as the saviour of God’s people he was jealous of him, especially when the people... Read more
I just love this video. To me it demonstrates in vision rather than words just how important events like Newday are to our teens. In a world which offers raves and concerts to be excited about, our young people get to be excited about Jesus. I am so grateful to God for men like Terry Virgo who was one of the pioneers of building churches that are not stuck only using the popular music of 50 to 100 years ago.... Read more
Yesterday’s post began to introduce us to King David, who I argued was possibly the greatest character other than Jesus in the Bible. Jesus himself does call John the Baptist the greatest in status, but David’s story is given in great detail for a reason. David’s story is so appealing for many different reasons. Generations of boys are excited by story’s of great battles, and glorious victories, none more so than the one we see in 1 Samuel 17. Which... Read more
It is amazing what one Tweet can start. A solitary Christian writer decided it would be fun to start a hash tag #AddaWordRuinaChristianBook, where the goal is simply to add a word to a title of a Christian book and make it seem hilarious, and perhaps just plain ridiculous. It is a lot of light fun, and at one point I believe the hashtag was the top trending meme on Twitter in the USA. For some of you, this post may just... Read more
In 1 Samuel 16 our gaze begins to turn from the failed leadership of King Saul to the emerging leadership of the future King David. David is probably the greatest character in the Bible other than our Lord himself. Certainly more chapters are devoted to his story and his songs than to anyone else. In 1 Samuel so far we have seen rather mixed examples of leadership. In David’s life we will see a much better model of leadership, and... Read more
My friends at Crossway have kindly allowed me to post this extract from Kevin De Young’s new book Crazy Busy: Pride is subtle and shape-shifting. There is more of it at work in our hearts than we know, and more of it pulsing through our busyness than we realize. Pride is the villain with a thousand faces. People-pleasing. We are busy because we try to do too many things. We do too many things because we say yes to too... Read more
I recently highlighted John MacArthur’s accusation that charismatics blaspheme the Holy Spirit. It seemed to me at the time that he was trying to throw back the clock to the angry divisions of the 1960s and beyond on this issue. Terry Virgo is one man who lived through that time as an emerging Evangelical leader, and today is still very much exercising a fruitful and significant ministry. I suspect Terry may be as saddened as I am to see some... Read more
This is a fascinating article, especially as I have met a number of Christian leaders, who behind the scenes and by nature, are far from being the extroverts we might imagine them to be. 4 Things Introverts Do that Makes Them Effective Leaders. Read more
UPDATE: The conference has now taken place and you can watch my interview with Eddy Leo and his sessions right here on the blog. If you can make it to London on November 23rd 2013 I’d love to see you at the next 300 Leaders Conference. The speakers will be Eddy Leo and Terry Virgo. The topic will be “Faith & Leadership.” Eddy Leo is the founding leader of Abbalove Ministries, a cell church with over 20,000 members based in... Read more
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