Exploring Faith and Spirituality

Religion

What Hath Hogwarts to Do with Jerusalem?

“So,” a friend asked me a few weeks ago, “what do you think about demonic possession?” The question caught me off guard, but I should’ve been more prepared. It was at least the third time in the p...

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Best Practices for Recruiting Children’s Ministry Volunteers

In my time serving as a children’s minister and family pastor, perhaps nothing tested my faith in God’s provision like recruiting volunteers. I once participated in a conference call with a group o...

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6 Ways to Lead Better Bible Study Discussions

“What does this passage mean to you?” You start with an easy, open-ended question to get the conversation moving. Fifteen minutes later, the group is discussing how Sharon should respond to her c...

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How to Traverse the Dark Side of God’s Sovereignty

On Sunday, May 18, 1969, my grandmother suddenly passed from a heart attack while attending her church’s evening service. It was my mother’s 27th birthday. Now 83 years old, Mom has often told me t...

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We Need Cultural Climatologists

Back in 2016, I asked the noted sociologist James Davison Hunter a few questions about that season’s tumultuous political campaigns. Who better to answer than the scholar who popularized the phrase...

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Glorifying God with Our Bodies Isn’t About What We Don’t Do

God made us for his glory. He created us “in his own image” (Gen. 1:27). We were made to reflect and display him, to be mobile monuments to God’s strength and beauty, not to be stationary statues. ...

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Retrieving the Past Can Sharpen Your Convictions

Several years ago, I served as an elder at a church that began to introduce to our congregation the idea of reciting the Apostles’ Creed together weekly. We were careful to unpack this idea through...

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Nicodemus: Incredulity, Indecision, and Identity

Snakes often evoke terror and revulsion. I experienced this one day on a hike when I heard a sound at my feet. There, right next to me, was a rattlesnake, coiled and ready to strike. One of the ho...

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Why Being Late to Church Matters

I’ve been wrong about church changes before. Pastors without ties? I was against it. Praise songs instead of hymns? Hated the idea. Coffee in the sanctuary? Borderline heretical. Now, though, I ca...

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How Grieving Moms (and Dads) Can Find Hope After Miscarriage

In his famous hymn “Jesus, I My Cross Have Taken,” Henry Lyte writes, “With Thy favor, loss is gain.” His lyrics capture a paradox of the heart of the Christian life. Gaining Christ comes through t...

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Waiting for God in the Gaps

Melissa and Courtney talk with Mark Vroegop about the gap moments of our lives when we have to wait. They discuss why waiting is so frustrating, what it means to wait on the Lord, what the Bible sa...

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The Role of Tawakkul in Strengthening Your Relationship with Your Spouse

When Love Needs a Deeper Foundation Marriage is one of life’s most beautiful journeys, yet it’s also one of the most challenging. Whether you are newlyweds discovering each other’s habits or a co...

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Young Men, the Wild Places Are for You

Young men, God has designed wild places to unlock spiritual truths in your heart. Wilderness experiences are a visceral means of drawing you nearer to Christ—a needed antidote to the numbness of ou...

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As Gen Z Turns to the Occult, How Should We Respond?

In Ingmar Bergman’s film The Seventh Seal, the protagonist—a knight returning disillusioned from the Crusades—encounters a witch about to be burned at the stake. As she’s being bound, he tells her ...

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The Power and Purpose of Apocalyptic Preaching

In this lecture, Don Carson discusses the unique nature of apocalyptic literature, emphasizing its distinct historical context and symbolic language. Carson argues that apocalyptic texts like Revel...

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Don’t Misread Proverbs

Proverbs is easily one of the most widely quoted books of the Bible. Practical and poetic, it invites us to live God’s way in God’s world by pursuing the path of wisdom. But despite its popularity,...

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Your Calling Transcends Your Job

I’m a product of 1990s evangelical youth group culture. Growing up, I heard a lot of talk about “calling” from youth ministers, adult volunteers, and the speakers at summer camps and weekend retrea...

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Are You Ready for the AI Apocalypse?

It was surely one of the most revealing cultural moments of the decade so far. On his podcast, Interesting Times, New York Times columnist Ross Douthat asks PayPal cofounder, tech billionaire, and ...

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What Your Kids Need More than a Salvation Prayer

If you’re a Christian and a parent, you doubtless have few priorities more pressing than your children’s salvation. When my children were little, I felt the weight of this constant burden. A few w...

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6 Psalms for Lamenting Miscarriage

“I just can’t shake the feeling that I’m going to lose this baby too,” I said to my two closest friends. I’d lost two babies already, and I feared our third was soon to leave my womb. The weight of...

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Beyond Slogans: A Christian Perspective on Gaza

My first adult journey into the Palestinian territories was in the early 2000s. Seeing the suffering of the Palestinians—particularly Palestinian Christians, whose stories rarely make international...

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