Many who teach grace make it seem as though “good works” are bad and should be avoided. But this is a distortion of Scripture. In this podcast episode, I weighs-in on the outreach vs. inreach debate among Christians (evangelism/social justice vs. community/communion), approaching it from a unique perspective and giving a clarion call regarding God’s mission in the earth. Read more

J.C. Ryle’s Expository Thoughts on the Gospels is an amazing set of commentaries. “We prize these volumes. They are diffuse, but not more so than family reading requires. Mr. Ryle has evidently studies all previous writers upon the Gospels, and has given forth an individual utterance of considerable value.” — CHARLES SPURGEON I personally recommend these Christ-centered commentaries. They are beautiful inside and out and contain riches that you won’t find in most modern commentaries. Here’s a description from the... Read more

“But when they measure themselves by one another and compare themselves with one another, they are without understanding.” ~ 2 Corinthians 10:12 Today’s social media has sought to put us all back in high school. Many of us are being tempted to measure our self worth and spiritual usefulness by artificial standards. Twitter followers, Facebook friends, top blog lists, unique visits, and Klout scores are the new metrics that have replaced making the homecoming court, surviving the sports team cut,... Read more

Sometime ago, I delivered a message to an organic missional church entitled Living in the Divine Parenthesis. The evening before I delivered the message, I wrote a song as a companion to the message called “He Has Anointed Us.” I wrote it to the tune of Wavin’ Flag by K’naan. Another organic missional church I relate to took the lyrics and recorded the song in a studio. The lyrics are below so you can read them while you listen to the recording. The... Read more

Here’s my first interview with Drew Marshall. We discuss the pagan origins of many of our Protestant church practices. Warning: It’s not for the faint in heart. Read more

The following is from Watchman Nee: “Men rejected Christ, not on the ground of what he did but on who he was, and they are invited to believe in what he is and who he is, and not, first of all, in what he has done. ‘He who hath the Son hath life.’ The appreciation of his work must come, but the main question is whether or not you have the Son, and not, first of all, whether or not... Read more

The most glorious picture of the ekklesia in the Old Testament. Click the link above to listen. Read more

Watchman Nee has written the best explanation of what the New Testament means by “the world.” He notes, (1) When we turn from the classics to the New Testament writers we find that their uses of kosmos fall into three main groups. It is used first with the sense of the material universe, the round world, this earth. For example, Acts 17:14, “the God that made the world and all things therein”; Matt. 13:35 (and elsewhere), “the foundation of the... Read more

Many students of the Bible have demonstrated that the “soul” — according to Scripture — contains three parts: mind, will, and emotion. In Revise Us Again, I discussed how these three parts of the soul map to the way that each Christian tends to recognize God’s voice. (You can listen to that chapter here for free.) People are generally wired to lead with one part of their soul. Some are mostly heady/intellectual (mind), others are mostly emotive/feelers (emotions), and others... Read more

Lexham Press (known for Logos Bible Software, which I highly recommend) has produced a marvelous new book entitled Journeys of the Apostle Paul. Craig Keener, the world’s foremost expert on New Testament background, is one of the contributors. It’s a beautiful volume. I’ll be using it — along with two similar books by F.F. Bruce — in my research for the updated and revised version of The Untold Story of the New Testament Church. Here’s the publisher’s description of the... Read more