When I was growing up in the 1980’s, we watched the national news almost every afternoon at 5:00. The only question was whether we would watch ABC, CBS, or NBC. The Mobile Press-Register arrived every morning and the Clarke County Democrat showed up every Thursday. We trusted our news sources and stayed relatively informed about important people and events in our culture. Nobody talked much about media bias and the term “fake news” was decades away. Today’s media landscape is... Read more
Sometimes we use casual language that betrays our understanding of the Gospel. We see this in little ways every day, but especially in the way that we describe especially mature Christians. How often do we talk about a faithful older Christian and say, “I’ll tell you what, she is a saint?” At its root, the word “saint” isn’t speaking about a really spiritual person, but a person who has been made holy. To avoid the confusion several newer translations use... Read more
One thing that I enjoy every year the week after Christmas is seeing people share their favorite books from the previous year. It always alerts me to interesting books that I have never heard of. This year, I also took notice of some of the responses I saw to these lists. “Does it have big words” and “This looks too deep to me” were some common responses I saw expressed about books that appeared to be even slightly challenging. While... Read more
I am quite embarrassed at how long it took me to get around to reading D.A. Carson’s The God Who is There. This book has been out for several years and is an outstanding overview of the storyline of the entire Bible. Carson walks through the high points of the biblical story, showing how God reveals himself each step along the way and how this story all hangs together on the life, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. If you... Read more
With the average American spending two hours a day on social media, an increasing number of voices argue that we need to learn how to step away for a while. Since the engineers at social media built their platforms to attract your attention, accomplishing this will take a lot more work than you might think. However, when you consider what time away from our devices will do for our spiritual lives, ministry fruitfulness, and emotional health, the pain of putting... Read more
I used to share some good things I have read every week but got out of the habit of doing so about a year ago. My goal here is to share some helpful, thoughtful, and challenging things I have read or listened to recently. Most will be written by Christian authors and address issues related to the Christian life, theology, or the church, but some will cover topics of general interest that relate to social issues, common sense wisdom, or history.... Read more
Recently, I ran across this post about Vern Poythress’ Scripture memory habits. While I had been faithful in my own personal Scripture memory the last couple of years, late last year I started slacking on reviewing the verses I had memorized and this post provided me with the example I needed to get going again. I doubt that I am the only person who struggles to be consistent in his Scripture memory. Scripture memory has no deadline and rarely does... Read more
As the new year dawns, many people will get started working on their New Year’s resolutions. For countless followers of Jesus, this means getting started on a new Bible reading plan. Many helpful reading plans are available, but reading plans are not really the point. The most important thing is that we are engaging with God through his word, growing in the knowledge of his word, and allowing what we learn from his word to change our hearts. As you... Read more
I’m grateful to all of you who read what I post here at One Degree to Another. Writing is an enjoyable outlet for me and is an outgrowth of my passion to see men, women, boy, and girls transformed into the image of Christ. (2 Corinthians 3:18) A lot of what I write here comes from reflections on my own life, thoughts that come to me as I read, and my now 15 years of full-time pastoral ministry. It was... Read more
It would be hard to overstate the role that good books have played in my life. Books have been my conversation partners, challenged my thinking, helped me see issues from a new point of view, transported me to places I have never visited, moved me to repent, and introduced me to people who have been dead for centuries. In 2014, I started following some good reading advice from Dr. Al Mohler and read across six categories– theology, biblical studies, church... Read more
One Degree to Another
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In