Tag: Social media

Reaching Further

Leave a comment

In this third part of our conversation about who God made us to be as a church, we talked about the fact that connecting and growing, while necessary, are not sufficient in and of themselves.  Thank you for taking part in this conversation with us and reflecting on God’s design for your own community.  Don’t miss next week as we put everything together and celebrate the thing that gives it all substance: The resurrection.

 

Reaching Further

Have you ever had a secret that was simply too good to keep to yourself?  It was news that you just weren’t going to be able not to share; you were just going to have to deal with the consequences later?  Or perhaps make this more personal: Have you ever gotten a bit of good news that you couldn’t possibly have not shared with the world?  In our social media-crazed world, some days it seems like most folks think everything is worth sharing.  “I got a promotion!”  “I ran a marathon!”  “My kid is on the honor roll!”  “My dog really like its new bed!”  “I woke up this morning!”  “I’m asleep now (my fingers are set on auto-post)!”  What starts to happen is that as everything gets shared, it can begin to seem like really, nothing is worth sharing.  I submit to you, though, that some things really are worth sharing.  What’s more, some places are designed to help us do that.  And I’m not talking about Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Read the rest…

Digging in Deeper: Philippians 1:20

Leave a comment

“…as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

Here, Paul is talking about his current physical situation and how some folks are responding to it.  Just before v. 20 here, he talks about people who are sharing the Gospel out of both pure and selfish motives.  Either way, Paul says, the Gospel is proclaimed, which brings him joy.  Verse 20 is followed by his much more famous declaration that to live is Christ, but to die is gain. Read the rest…

Morning Musings: Proverbs 26:4-5

Leave a comment

“Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself.  Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes.”  (ESV)

One of the most common criticisms of the Bible (usually made by people who have either not read it at all or else not read it closely) is that it is full of contradictions.  Places like this give these folks a great deal of ammunition.  At first read and even second and third, this is obviously a contradiction.  As one commentator noted, if these verses were located in different parts of the Bible it would seem the contradictory nature was exceedingly obvious. Read the rest…

Digging in Deeper: Ephesians 4:29

Leave a comment

Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.  (ESV – Read the chapter)

Paul’s focus here is on our words which is pretty important.  Most of us have a tough time staying out of trouble there.  James makes a convincing case for this in his letter (read it here).  We are able in most cases to whip up a mean batch of foot stew at a moment’s notice. Read the rest…

A Vise-Grip on Truth

2 Comments

This week as we continued in the third part of our series through 1 John, A Word on Reality, we looked at how we can stand firm in the reality of God against this world’s unrelenting tide of fantasies and their ever more aggressive attempts to move in their direction.  If we are going to resist the lies of this world, there is one key thing we must do.  Read on to find out what it is.

 

A Vise-Grip on Truth

For the past couple of summers, Lisa and I have enjoyed the show “Fool Us with Penn and Teller” on the CW Network.  It’s a gameshow wherein four different magicians bring their best tricks to try and fool the world-famous magician duo.  The challenge is that they’ve been at it for over 40 years and know just about everything there is to know about magic and how to do it.  While there are a few tricks we have been able to figure out, there are some that leave us absolutely flummoxed as to how they did it.  Any really good magic trick can leave you feeling like maybe there’s more to this world than we know about.  Now, of course, no magic show is any more than a cleverly disguised trick, but the intimation of something more is part of its appeal.  Still, while the nod and wink of a magician is entertaining, following that rabbit all the way down its hole can lead, as Alice discovered, to more trouble than most of us would care to find.   Read the rest…