By John Frye I heard an illustration when I was in seminary from Dr. Howard Hendricks. He said that when water flows through a pipe, the pipe is not affected. There’s no change in the pipe. However, when water works its way through the fine vessels of a tree, the tree grows and produces good fruit. Preachers can be either pipes or trees. What is a pipe preacher? Good commentaries, other preachers’ stories, bits and pieces picked up from National... Read more

This election season has been nothing less than a colossal — call it apocalyptic — revelation. How so? I wonder if these patterns are characteristic of the United Kingdom and Continental European countries as well? The church now has a profile for its mission: these divisions can be addressed in creative ways by the church. How is your church crossing these election revelations of division? I have seen a number of discussions claim Trump is not a “true” or “real”... Read more

In his exceptional new study, Endangered Gospel: How Fixing the World is Killing the Church, John Nugent speaks of God’s design as the “better place.” Nugent’s approach is a full biblical narrative of the new heavens and the new earth (the final Better Place) and in a series of post we have examined almost all of Nugent’s narrative. There are some unique and important contributions in his narrative (e.g., an early focus on the Powers) and some other elements that join... Read more

By Sara Barton. Sara is the University Chaplain at Pepperdine University, where she pastors, preaches, and leads a delightful and capable staff of ministers. She and her husband, John, live in an empty nest these days while their daughter Brynn is a college student and their son Nate is newly married to Falon. Sara’s book, A Woman Called, is available at Amazon.com. We’ve heard a lot of public language about sex this week. In rushed conversations before going to print,... Read more

By Leslie Leyland Fields This is not the worst lie I ever told, but it’s the most memorable. I had just turned twelve. I was going to a movie theatre with my best friend. I had only been to two other movies in my life, so this was a big deal. And it was costing all the money I had in the world—-a dollar I held excitedly in my pocket. But there was a problem. As I stood in line,... Read more

The final section of  A Little Book for New Scientists: Why and How to Study Science by Josh Reeves and Steve Donaldson looks at  the interplay between science and Christian faith – particularly science and Scripture, the impression that most scientists are atheists, and the calling to be scientists for the good of the church. There is much good advice in this section.  I will highlight only a few points, skipping altogether the chapter on the claim that most scientists... Read more

Michael Peppard: Lots to discuss here. (1) Is Peppard’s analysis true? (2) Are preachers too insensitive to the realities of the congregation? (3) Do people choose churches on the basis of the preaching? (4) What do you think of sticking to one text in Scripture?  From the pew, here’s what I want to yell at every preacher in the pulpit: You have no idea of the spiritual hunger out here. Almost every sermon is a missed opportunity. When you look... Read more

I am predicting that N.T. Wright’s newest, The Day the Revolution Began, will become more significant than his justly and widely-read Surprised by Hope. Wright has taken the tradition of Christian atonement theories back to the Bible to challenge the theories and to reframe the whole discussion — not by way of rejecting that Jesus has died for our sins but by way of putting it all into his larger understanding of the Bible’s own narrative. E.g., end of exile, kingdom of... Read more