By John Frye. Jesus sets the pace for life in the 21st century. The 21st century is driven by stories. Have you noticed that? Commercials are morphing at a rapid rate into mini-movies (or, as Scot might say, wiki-stories). Danish futurist Rolf Jensen said that storytellers will be the heroes of the 21st century. Take note evangelical leaders. He said storytellers, not expositors. Many people are moved to tears by evangelical sermons because they are so boring. Jesus was a... Read more

From Andrew Wolfson: What do you think? To attend or not to attend?  The president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary says in a new book that Christians should not attend a same-sex wedding ceremony – even of their own child – because it “signals moral approval” of the union. Writing in “We Cannot Be Silent,” R. Albert Mohler Jr. says that while it may be “excruciatingly difficult” to boycott gay weddings of friends and loved ones, “at some point attendance will... Read more

We Protestants teach everyone this: You must read the Bible for yourself. Of course, we don’t want those “you”s to get too clever and start saying things that aren’t there, but there is a lot in this teaching we hold so dear. And that is why everyone who reads and teaches the Bible needs to read Mark Allan Powell’s What Do They Hear? I think this book is solid gold. Why? Because Mark seriously asks what it is like for preachers to address an... Read more

Chicago Tribune: A Cubs source confirmed to the Tribune that the monstrous Kyle Schwarber home run ball from Tuesday’s series-clinching win over the Cardinals landed on top of the right field video board. A Cubs employee was sent to retrieve the ball Wednesday morning, and a source said the team verified it was the actual Schwarber ball through an MLB postseason watermark on it. It will be officially authenticated by MLB today. The Cubs have returned it to its original... Read more

Nick Miroff: Activists at the illegal-but-tolerated Cuban Commission for Human Rights and Reconciliation tallied 353 political arrests and detentions around Francis’s visit, and at least 882 in September, a 15-month high. “The jury is still out on whether there will be a ‘Francis effect’ on religious liberty in Cuba, but the early prognosis doesn’t look promising,” said Andrew Chesnut, a Vatican expert at Virginia Commonwealth University. “If there is any one institution in Cuba that possesses the legitimacy and organizational capacity to... Read more

By Joe James, who is the Associate Minister at Southside Church of Christ in Rogers, AR In the summer of 2004, I took my first ministry job, was married to my beautiful wife Shaila, and purchased my first home. Our new life was off to a great start.  That same summer, the house next to us went up for sale and the man who purchased it suffered from schizophrenia and a substance abuse problem.   For about 9 months, living next to him was a literal hell on earth.  Here are just a... Read more

David de Silva has reconstructed the Christian doctrine of salvation, understood far too often as an ordo of justification and then (if possible) sanctification but surely in the end glorification, into a Christian doctrine of transformation. He does this in his new book Transformation: The Heart of Paul’s Gospel. This book is steady, simply organized, and biblically based. What David does is give the doctrine of salvation a teleology that transcends a far too common doctrine of salvation that seems not to have to... Read more

A moving story of someone — Donel Clark —  granted clemency, and someone who illustrates restorative justice. A 51-year-old who has spent more than two decades behind bars, Clark is one of 22 nonviolent drug offenders whom Obama granted clemency in March in an effort to shorten the harsh mandatory minimum sentences imposed on thousands of mostly African American men during the war on drugs in the 1980s and 1990s. Those ex-convicts, along with 46 others given commutations in July, are... Read more